I’ve mentioned in previous posts that if you’re planning to race as part of your running lifestyle, it’s important to find the right distance niche for you. Of course, even if you’ve found a niche, sometimes adjustments need to be made. It’s fairly common for professional 5000M and 10000M runners to transition to the marathon. Haile Gebrselassie and Kenenisa Bekele did this with different degrees of success. This normally happens as they’re getting up in in years and it becomes more natural to maintain a speed that’s a little less than 10000M pace over a longer distance.
If you’ve read my “About” section, you’ll know I’ve been all over the place over the past thirty years and I’m not in a situation where shifting my focus would represent brand-new territory. For the last eight years or so, I’ve been focusing mainly on 5Ks because it’s a distance I feel balances my enjoyment of miles with pushing the accelerator. Also, I wanted to get several more in before going too far up the age ladder.
Following this past summer, when I’d hoped to turn in faster 5Ks than I did, I started to wonder if it was about time to stop focusing on 5Ks and start a shift to the half-marathon. This was logical: it’s a longer distance to accommodate my forward progress in years, I’ve generally felt comfortable with heavier mileage, and one of my best races in the past several years was a ten-miler. If I’m not able to shift into the extra, necessary gear to get the 5K time I want, maybe it’s time to change.
And, after tussling with the idea for a couple of weeks, I ultimately settled back into 5K plans for the rest of the fall. Why? A couple of reasons. It’s what all my training has centered around for the past several months. Also, the races I’ve run recently have featured very warm temperatures, which has had an impact on my time. Maybe some cooler temperatures through the fall will help adjust for that. And, sometimes athletes just go through a rougher patch.
If I get through the fall and I’m still not finding that extra gear, then it may be time to reevaluate. Is this the right approach? Only time will tell. I’m sure plenty of athletes have made the transition to a different event at the right time, others have jumped too soon, and others waited too long. It’s one big piece of the unknowns of athletic performance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I’ve mentioned in previous posts that if you’re planning to race as part of your running lifestyle, it’s important to find the right distance niche for you. Of course, even if you’ve found a niche, sometimes adjustments need to be made. It’s fairly common for professional 5000M and 10000M runners to transition to the marathon. … <\/p>\n