7:30 Project: Race Outcome and Project Conclusions

The 2025 Spring in the Park 5k/10K race was a hit! In spite of the all-day rain and springy cold temperatures, more than 300 women showed up to spend a morning with friends. Plenty of Stelleri athletes showed up to run and that really made my day. This year, the addition of a jewelry vendor, coffee truck, and post-race wine bar elevated the experience even more! For sure, this race will be on my annual event calendar for as long as it continues.

And now, for the race outcome: did I meet my 7:30 min/mile average pace goal? No, I did not. I finished the race with an official time of 48:36, for an average of 7:50 min/mile.

I'll take it! I raced as well as I could, I gave it everything I had, and I am very satisfied with my finish.

So now I have to ask myself if I am actually capable of running a 7:30 pace in a 10K race. My gut instinct is that I am: I came close enough to my goal to know that, if I did things differenly, I would be able to meet this target. The question is, do I really want to?

Since I started my goal-focused running training back in February, there have been a number of obstacles that popped up (some unexpected, some were already in the plan). I had opportunities to run that I opted not to take. For one thing, I allowed myself to bag workouts when the weather was crappy, and we had a whole lot of crappy over the past couple of months (ongoing but we are all hoping to see the sun at some point in the near future). Even when I forced myself to just go out and run, I often 'just went out for a run' rather than do the planned workout I needed to facilitate adaptations. (More on that below, in the list of things I learned along the way.)

I believe in setting goals that aren't guaranteed attainable. The best goals are the ones that start out with uncertainty, even when all things go as planned. Even if I were 100% compliant with my training over the past few months, I still don't know if I would have been able to get to a 7:30 average. And that, to me, is what makes the goal a worthy endeavor. It's an exercise in self-discovery throughout the process.

What did I learn over the course of this project? SO many things!

• I don't like to run outside in miserable conditions.
• "Miserable conditions" is a subjective quality and the definition changes over time.
• I experience exercise-induced asthma when I'm working hard, and especially when I'm working hard in cold conditions.
• I learned that if I want to be a more accomplished runner, I need to run more frequently and consistently.
• And frequently and consistently means including workouts beyond the aerobic base training to which I naturally gravitated.
• I learned that I would rather ride a bike on nice weather days than go out for a run. This is a problem when nice weather days are few and far between.
• I learned that I will not run on a treadmill, no matter what. If I can't run outside, I will not run.
• I learned that I am undecided about whether I want to continue to pursue this goal. At the moment, it doesn't seem worth the time and effort. Maybe in the future I will change my mind and commit, but that's off the table for now.

And with that, it's time to move on to new endeavors, whatever they may be! If you have a challenging goal on your race and event calendar this year, I'd love to hear from you.