This weekend, the runners on reddit were doing “Anywhere 5k”, a virtual race and since I hadn’t tried to run a really fast (for me) 5k in ages, I took part.

New fastest 5k at 25:28!!!

My previous PB at that distance was 26:37. I’d secretly been hoping to crack 25 minutes but oh well. 

Some facts about Dana and the 5k:

1. When I completed Couch to 5k in August 2010, my first 5k took me about 37 minutes to run.
2. The first time I cracked 5k was on September 30th, 2010. I ran it in 29:27
3. When I finished that day, I was gasping for air, a little nauseous and my legs were sore for a couple of days.
4. I’m probably about 30 pounds lighter now than when I ran that one, which probably accounts for some of my improvement.
5. A decent 5k time for a high school athlete is probably 16 or 17 minutes. 
6. These days 5k in 30 minutes is a brisk but still pretty easy run.
7. If I could maintain the pace I ran yesterday’s 5k at for an entire marathon (which I absolutely cannot), my time would still be almost 30 minutes too slow to qualify me to run the Boston Marathon. It will be sufficiently fast when I’m 55 though :P

Most of my speed improvements have been due to just running a lot (and weight loss to some degree). Before the WPS Half-Marathon last weekend, I’d never done any specific speedwork and have never really trained for 5000 metres.