The 5K: "Freaking Awesome" or Freaking Easy?

I'll be honest.  I never thought very highly of the 5K.  I have only done a handful of them and not very seriously.  I never kept track of my times in previous races, however, by using athlinks.com I found some old races and my previous PR for the 5K was 20:38 from a race I did in 2006, the same year I was training for the Chicago Marathon in an attempt to qualify for Boston.  That was before I had a different last name and 2 kids.

Fast forward to this year. 2014.  I am loving the 5K, even though my approach to it is haphazard at best!

My second child arrived on 12/6/2013.  I really wanted to get back into running as soon as possible after his arrival.  Luckily my best friend encouraged me to do a 5K with her at the beginning of June. My time was 21:16 and I finished thinking that I could have run faster.

The next 5K I did was 9 weeks later.  My goal was to run sub 21 minutes.  I crossed the finish line at 20:00:28.  Woot!  New PR for me!

In September, I ran an 8K in 32:12.9.

The third 5K I did was a "fun run" this past Saturday, although it was still timed.  I did not set a goal because my back was bothering me and I had taken a few days off from running.  However, once I started going, I felt good and stayed with the lead pack.  My time at the finish was 19:23, but my Garmin recorded 19:31.  Either way, I am pleased.  I was tired at the finish, but knew I held back.  I want to really try to go all out and see how fast I could do the 5K.

So, logically I signed up for a 4th 5K (or 3rd "real" 5K) this Sunday. My goal is to run under 19 minutes, which I think is doable if I can embrace the fact that I will have to REALLY get out of my comfort zone.

Here are 10 Reasons the 5K is Freaking Awesome by one of my running idols, and fellow #motherrunner, Lauren Fleshman.  For me, the thing that I have come to really like about 5K is the competition aspect (#4 in her list).  I started running by running competitively on my high school cross country and track teams way back when.  Sure it is "easy" to run a 5K to finish it, but to race it? Therein lies the challenge and the fun. After I get this BQ business out of the way, I think it would be fun to specifically train for the 5K and really have it at.