For anyone willing to give it, I could use some advice:
Started running 5 weeks ago. Goal is to do the princess half in feb.
I want to sign up for a local race between now and then to get even a tiny bit experience of a race.
On Nov 19, I could do a 5k or 10k...not sure which to do.
My long runs right now are over 3 miles; I don't have a run over 6 miles for another 7 weeks (2 weeks after this race).
Should I push and try for the 10k, or keep my slow and steady pace and run the 5k?
I'm worried about pushing too much and "trying to get ahead", but on the other hand, if I can do the 10k in nov, I think my confidence would be higher for the remainder of my training for the half.
If I can't finish the 10k...that's going to be detrimental to my mental game. Fear of failing has held me back my entire life. I'm wondering if I should do the 5k since I already can run/walk that distance.
Advice? Comments?
Thank y'all so much.
This is a tough one because I don't know that much about you as a person or your schedule. Your long runs are over 3 miles but by how much? What does your plan look like for the next month as far as long runs? Will you be at 5 miles for a long run?
A case can be made for both distances. I agree with
@OldSlowGoofyGuy, the 5k is probably the safest bet. You know you can do it and guaranteed success might be better for you if you struggle with confidence issues. But, you CAN do the 10K too. As we have discussed on this thread many times before, running is 90% mental and 10% physical. We were all made to run. Some may be faster than others but we can all run so that takes care of the 10% physical. The mental comes into play when things get tough. Then you get to decide how bad you want it.
So many of us have been where you are. At the beginning of the summer many people posted their transformation stories and pictures. I apologize to those who have read my story before. I began running in March of 2014 in an effort to deal with my changes going on in my life (that are still going on
). I was unhealthy and self-esteem and lack of self-confidence were my biggest issues. I hated running at that point but I wanted to get out of my comfort zone and I knew Disney did races so I turned to Disney for motivation. I had no thread like this for support and encouragement, initially (I finally found the 2014 ToT thread which helped). I knew nobody that ran. I was scared to death of the whole thing.
I signed up for a POT race in June, so just 3 months after I started running. It was a 10K. Prior to the race I hadn't gotten further than 5 miles in training. On top of it I went into the race sick. I had a head cold. Normally that would have been the exact excuse I needed to quit and not show for the race. But, I had no fever so I went. I just wasn't expecting much. The race started off badly because as soon as gun went off I had trouble with my phone and it threw me off so I had to immediately step off the course to fix it. All of that and I still ran the fastest I had ever run.
The reason I didn't quit on this race was not because I had gotten over the excuses already, it was because I had signed up for ToT, the money was spent. People knew I was doing it and they all thought I was crazy. I was so afraid of being swept in that race that I didn't want to start in the last corral so I HAD to run the race. The deadline for submitting POT was the following week. I had no time to run another race.
I share this story to show what can happen when you push yourself. I realized during and after that race that it was time to stop living in fear. I almost didn't show for the race and when I did I had run 45 seconds faster per mile during the race than I had in any training run. I was so confident after that race that I made the genius decision to sign up for my first marathon and ran that in October, 2 weeks after ToT.
You can do both distances. If you decide you are going to do the 10K you can make it happen if you decide you want it bad enough. You can come here every day for support. Your training schedule can be adjusted to maybe increase your mileage a bit more over the next month to get you ready. And even if you decide to try the 10K and don't finish for some reason, it still doesn't mean you failed. You fail by quitting. If you try, don't succeed, and keep trying then you didn't fail, you learned from the process. If you don't finish and then never run again, that's when you fail.
I'm not sure I was much help but I remember being where you are right now and I know how it felt. Being on the other side, and knowing how good it feels to knock down that walls holding you back, I just get so fired up to help people.
(<----- Not quite loud, but you get it!)
