The Year Ahead

OK, so I did not keep up with posting like I wanted. Life has been busy. I said in a post back in October that I wanted to do a 10K, 10 Miler and a 50K in 2016. That has changed; I want to do nothing but 5K races this year. My goals are to get faster and to get as close to the 18 minute mark as possible. My fastest time for the 5K in 2015 was 20:21. I am pretty sure breaking into 19 minutes will be fairly easy (yea right) but getting to the 18 minute range will take some serious work. Even 18:59 would make me happy.

Having said all of that I realize that I am not as young as I used to be and must be cautious with this. I need avoid injury by not overdoing speed work by neither trying too hard nor doing too much of it. Building overall strength will be a priority, especially for the legs. Running slow on those easy days will be a must.

For those of you out there that would fall under the Masters heading that are trying to run a faster 5K hopefully you can benefit from my documenting my goals to include what not to do. And, maybe I can learn a thing or two from the readers.

My best race times for 2015 are … (I only did 5 races this year)

1. 5K: 20:21, Third place age group, Jeff Annas Memorial Firefighter 5K

2. 10 Miles: 1:10:56, First place age group, Wellington Horse Country 10 Miler

3. Marathon: 1:35:50, First place age group, EAU Palm Beach Marathon and Half Marathon

Total mileage for the year: 1,327.25 by Garmin