I have been running and cross country skiing for three years now consistently.
In the summers, I have been doing at least one half marathon and at least one cross country ski marathon in the winters.
My goals have been to complete these longer distance endurance activities with the main goal of improving and maintaining my health.
Lately, I have been increasing my weekly running mileage while still running nice and slow, but, I've found that the meaning of slow is changing for me.
When I first got my running watch, and began collecting heart rate data, my heart rate would spike even on "slow" runs but now I am able to maintain decent paces and it just feels easy.
Like I could keep running forever.
With no running related injuries, and with no races on the horizon, I felt like testing my limits last week.
I decided to take another crack at running 5 km in less than 25 minutes.
That's one kilometer every five minutes.
I tried doing this with my buddy James once before and got fully destroyed. It felt like I was sprinting and nothing about it felt sustainable.
I usually avoid pushing myself like that and I've learned it's a huge mental challenge to enter into that realm of burning.
The only time I've run 5km in under 25 mins was in the middle of the Kelowna Wine Country Half Marathon in 2022 where I completed the race with a personal best time of 1hr51mins.
The sub-25 minute 5km segment was made up of 3 km of steep downhill followed by 2 km of flat trail so I don't really count it.
So anyways...
I have been envisioning myself running this 5 km effort for a few months, focusing a lot of easy slow running and higher volume:
I believe it was this slow steady build that made it possible.
My resting heart rate lately is nice and low, around 45 bpm when I wake up and when running 7 mins/km it sits at around 150 bpm.
I know that I can sustain a heart rate of at least 175 bpm for over three hours given my race history so I felt like I had some new room to push.
I wanted to do a little tester last Wednesday, just try to hold the 5 min/km pace for a while and see where my heart rate shot to.
My plan was to run slow and get a warm up in before engaging that pace but, as I took off, I looked down at my watch and I was running 4m44s/km and it was feeling easy, my heart rate was around 170 bpm so I knew I had some wiggle room.
I gave up on a warm up and figured I should just see how long I could keep it up.
I wondered when my heart would freak out and all my systems would shut down...
This was unchartered territory.
It was hot, mid-day, with the sun high in the sky, but I kept going and honestly I was feeling amazing.
Until about the third kilometer...
This was during a slight climb along the creek, very slight, but my heart rate rose to ~190 bpm and I seriously wondered how I was going to hold the pace for another ten minutes.
This was usually the point where I would slow down and take 'er easy, I usually shy away from that lactic acid burn and the kind of loopy out of body feeling, but I figured this might be a new "muscle" I could to learn to train.
It was only 10 minutes left, 2 more km.
I had to finish somehow.
At the point where I turned around, I got that ever so slight decline that brought my heart rate back around 175-180 but I still felt like I was dying.
I just kept wondering "is this even possible for me?"
I just had to hold on; I figured this goal would always be hard like this and I just had to burn my way through.
Right near the 5 km mark, I felt like a lunatic, and I was just giving it everything I had left. This lady looked at me and kind of laughed out loud.
It was for sure in my head but in my mind, she knew that I was going for it.
Well, I did it!
My new personal record is 5 km in 24m35s.
My average heart rate turned out to be 176 bpm so in theory I could have burned harder (but might have also puked haha).
I feel really proud of this accomplishment, especially because I did it entirely for my own reasons, and in my own time.
I know so many people who are insanely fast, they make my pace look slow but compared to myself...
I'm fast as fuck now boiiiiiiiiiiii <3
Written by Jinxz and originally published in the July 7, 2024 edition of the Heavy Herb Weekly Newsletter
