Thinking further about the cycle of coaching that I mentioned last time, I’ve put it into a bit of a framework, with an acronym, because those are fun. SPEER: Set goals, Plan, Execute, Evaluate and Revise. I recently raced a 5k for the first time in many years, so here is an explanation of that framework, using my own 5k as the example.
Set goals:
The goal I set was to run under 20min for 5k. I think everyone has heard of SMART goals (another fun acronym). You want to have a goal be specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time-based. A sub-20 5k is all of those things for me. I was going to run it at the Montreal parkrun on June 28, and certainly my recent workouts said it was within my range of fitness. The additional wrinkle to the goal was that if I did run under 20min, I could register for the “fast” section of the Endurance 5k on August 20. This is a good example of an outcome goal: run a time. It’s also got a bit of process goal in it, in that if my goal is to make the fast section, then running sub-20 is a requirement for that.
I didn’t necessarily have this as my specific goal at the start of the season. At that point it was more process-based: get back to full training, be consistent with lifting, then add workouts. Then I got new physio so it was make sure I do those exercises every day. I only came to the sub-20 goal in about the last month when the opportunity arose, via the Endurance 5k, and the workouts started to indicate it was a good thing to shoot for.
Plan:
The planning in this case was for this specific race. My training leading up was pretty generic in terms of load and intensity. I wasn’t doing anything special or really specific. That can be a plan, too: train simply and consistently. The race plan, with a little help from my friend Saheed, was to start in 4:00, then pick it up in the second km to 3:50 (his idea), and then settle to 3:55. If 20min was in the cards, this should be doable and I’d have a 15sec cusion for the last two 2k. I also knew that the course started on a 150m downhill, followed by an 80m uphill, then there was a long straightaway for about 1km. My plan was to get through the down/up part, then settle in and focus on running the different sections of the course: the long straightaway, the second km had more straightaway, followed by some twists and turns to get to 3k. 3k was then one block of the park that went up and down a little, and the 4th km was after a sharp left, then right, then another park section, also a little hilly, with the final km including a sweeping turn to the left, then shorter section where you can see the finish maybe from about 200m away. I planned to break the race up into these sections and only focus on the section I was in, not getting too ahead of myself.
I did plan to check my splits, something I don’t like to do in a race because you never really get good information, as I may have said before. But I wanted to try to follow Saheed’s plan and he insisted I check splits.
Execute:
The race didn’t go exactly as planned, but it went ok. I checked my watch about 1:20 into the race, after the uphill and it said I was running 4:03/k so I figured I was good. I didn’t look again until it beeped for 1km. I was surprised to look and see 3:46. Oops. I felt ok but I knew that this may be a problem later. In any case, I decided not to lay off and see how much time I could bank. I knew that I had a “floor” of running 4:20/k. I was confident that all the threshold work I’d done would not let me run slower than that. The danger was that as soon as I hit my limit, I’d drop directly to that pace. I’d already messed up the first K so I figured, let’s just keep going! I should also point out that I was leading the race, and there was no one else near me. This contributed to my decision to just power through. If I had someone near my I would have probably eased off and let them take the lead and just follow. But this wasn’t an option.
I went through the long straightaway and through the twists and turns of the 2nd K feeling good. I thought I was doing a good job of cutting the tangents as well. There were a lot of turns in the race so I didn’t want to run too much extra. I did look at my 2nd km split and it was 3:56.
The mental break up of the course into sections was a good idea as I was able to last well into the 3rd km before it really started to hurt. This is pretty standard for a 5k so I figured I was doing well and needed to keep pushing. I didn’t look at my 3rd km split because, frankly, I didn’t want to know. I knew I had to push hard through the ups and downs so that’s what I did. I continued this through to the 4th km but when my watch beeped for that one, I did sneak a peek and I saw 4:12 (yikes) and 15:58 (also yikes). Some quick math said that my 3rd km had been around 4:05 which meant I’d given back almost all my banked time. The rest of the math was not too hard to do: I had to run 4:00 for the last km to get under 20. I thought: ok this is going to hurt by I can do it!
I started pushing very hard. Heading into the last sweeping turn before the finish, I snuck a look behind me and I saw someone. If I won the race but didn’t break 20 that would be ok, but if I led the whole race, got out-kicked and ran slower than my goal, that would be very annoying, so I was motivated to push. Before the race, I had run 1min of a pickup in my warm-up, from a point in the curve to where I thought the finish was. So when I hit that point, I knew I had about 1min to go, so I really hammered, knowing I could get there. I just didn’t know if it would be fast enough.
About 70m before the finish line, my watch beeped for the final 5k. I resisted the urge to look so as not to lose any precious seconds, but I figured that meant I wasn’t going under 20 officially. A short 13 sec later, I could confirm, my final time was 20:11 for the official race distance. My watch did say I ran 5k in 19:58, but that doesn’t count. A lot of people might say it does, but I won’t take that. That’s why they measure races, you race from the start line to the finish line.
At the finish, I waited for the guy who was behind me and congratulated him on his race. Turns out he’s a Cirque du Soleil acrobat, in training for a show in Berlin. Very cool.
Evaluate:
Ok so I did not exactly follow the plan, although I tried to. I thought I was following the plan, until I was not. I did have the secondary, non-splits plan (sorry Saheed), which I executed well: I know that breaking up the race into parts and focusing on the moment works well to get you through the hard parts. If you do that, the splits will be what they are. In any case, having not run a 5k in 5-6 years, I knew I’d probably mess up the pacing. I really did think, after that first 1:20, that I was running about 4min pace. And I started to hurt at the right time of the race, about 3.5k, not too soon, which would have meant that I went out too hard, and not too late, which would mean I could have pushed more. I did like that I was able to finish with a sub-4 km (at least on my watch), so that was good. The course was a bit tougher in kms 3-4, so that helps.
Overall, I could have chilled a bit more in the first km, but my effort was strong all the way through, so I’m happy with the effort. I didn’t reach the goal of sub-20, but for a first race in a while, it was good.
Revise:
I feel confident I can go under 20 next time. I need to pay closer attention to pace (thanks, Saheed) at the start, but keep the good effort on a more flat, paved course. After 6 more weeks of training, I might even be able to start in 3:45 and hold it…I’ll evaluate that closer to the day.
Now we are back at “Set a goal.” Sub-20 on August 20th is the goal. Planning to come!
Hopefully, this is a useful framework, with an easy-to-remember name (SPEER!), that can apply to training, racing, and anything else! Starting a business, launching a product, getting a job. Try it! And if you need help, let me know, I’m available.
Thanks!
Congrats on the great race. Like this framework…