Yesterday I ran the Eileen Dugan 5K at Brooklyn Bridge Park, finishing 28th out of 168 in 23:59. It was only the second time I’ve finished a race under 24 minutes, so I am pretty happy with it.
My splits were decent, all under 8 mins with the middle mile the slowest. It took a good 5 – 10 seconds to get over the start line (which wasn’t clocked) so it was gun Vs finish. I was a good 23 seconds shy of my PR, but I have another 5K later this month so there’s a chance.
The race was won by South Brooklyn Running Club’s Ben Carter in 18:02 and the top women’s finisher was Serena Hunt in 19:59.
I haven’t ran a huge number of 5K’s over the last 3 years, but looking at my finish times, the last couple really have shown a big improvement in my speed, but I know I can do a lot more to improve this with strength and speed work, which I have seriously neglected since I started running.
This evening it will be a long slow 8-miles as I prepare for two up and coming races, the Red Hook Crit 5K and Brooklyn Half Marathon. The latter I am hopeful of a course best (I’ve never cracked two hours), as for the former, I am really hoping for a 5K PR.
Red Hook Crit 5K
So last year, this is the race I came 120th out of 135 runners, which I was very pleased about as I got my 5K PR in some style, and the race had an incredible field, the winner crossing the line in 14:21. Yesterday’s winning time at the Brooklyn Bridge Park would have placed 40th, just to add some context. It was 4 laps of 1.25K each. This year it’s 5 laps of 1000m each, so to figure out how to break my PR, I need to work in Kilometers.
My time last year was 23:36 over 5K, which is 4:43/KM. So I am looking at doing laps quicker than 4:43. During my marathon training I’d quite often do 400m laps in about 1:50 but remember that feeling pretty tough – well this is 1:53 per 400m which for me is very fast. But I managed it once… all I need to do is manage it again and knock off 1 second somewhere!
Easy eh? I’d better get to the track…
Composing Strides 