April 11 — Two Days Out & Test Running

Two days from race day. I’m taking the day before race day off so I can recover, so today will be my last run before the 5K. I also wanted to run it in the morning, since the 5K is at 8am. There was no shot I was waking up that early today, but I did wake up at 8:45 so I could get a bit used to the early morning run. I quickly realized, as I was running, that this was less than 12 hours after my last workout. Probably not the best idea, and probably a decent contributor to the lethargy I was feeling. But I think it was worth it to get an early(ish) morning run in.

I also realized I was perhaps in a bit of a music predicament. At the gym, I run and workout with my AirPods in, but when I run outside I just play music from my phone (turning it down if I’m around a lot of people) since I want to be fully aware of my surroundings and not get hit by a car. Obviously, during the 5K the roads will be closed, but I have had problems with my AirPods falling out while running in the past so I realized I should probably try a run with them in. They stayed in the whole time, but of course they died about halfway through my run. I kept them in and they didn’t fall out, which was good, and I just played music from my phone speaker the rest of the run.

Two other predicaments I had: weather and pacing. It was pretty cold in the morning, but I don’t like running in leggings. I wore shorts and a long sleeve t-shirt, hoping it would be enough, but I was quite cold for a lot of the run. I still need to figure out if I’m wearing leggings or a hoodie or whatnot during the race, since the weather will be about the same as today.

The last problem was pacing. I truly have no idea how fast I’ll be able to run the race. Since I haven’t run much in April, with no long runs, I decided to go for a 4 mile run today to ensure that my brain knows I have the stamina for the 5K. I found a playlist on Apple music called “10 minute mile,” and I figured that’d be a good start. Immediately I realized I went out way too fast. I looked at my strava a couple blocks in, and my pace was in the 7 minute mile range. I went back to my old workout playlist, and realized I’m just going to have to figure my speed and pacing out by vibes.

The run went well, overall. I definitely got a bit crampy and definitely wasn’t well dressed for the cold, but I did four miles and I felt good about it. I also told myself I was going to get a good night’s sleep tonight and tomorrow. My dad has always said that “the night before the night before” is really important, so I know it’s important that I sleep well tonight. Thankfully I did, and I got about 7 hours of sleep.

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