More 5K angst

After a conversation yesterday with my friend Judy​, I realized that Judy and I are both using exactly the same fact to argue for opposite things. She said I can do a 5K; I said I can’t. Today, when I hit the 3.1 mile mark on the treadmill at 39 minutes, I thought to myself, “See? I can’t do it.”

So I’m tossing this out to my blog (and Facebook — this is a crosspost) because I’m an expert at missing the point and have extensive experience in being told I’m an idiot — those two things usually happen at the same time, in fact. When you say “I can do a 5K?” what do you mean?

I think when Judy says it, she means, “You can do a combination of running and walking and your distance will eventually total 3.1 miles,” whereas I’m saying, “Doing a 5K means running at a decent pace for the majority of the time and finishing in under 35 minutes.”

I realized though that if someone came to me and said, “I would love to write poetry, but I can’t,” I’d probably sound exactly like Judy: Of course you can.

Anybody can
do something like this
and it might be
crap
but who cares?
This is a poem.

I’d be doing a 5K in the same way that the above is a poem.

Anyhow, today’s “run” was 60 minutes, alternating 4 minutes running with 2 minutes walking, total 4.6 miles.

3 Comments

  1. Pat D

    I’m with Judy. You can do a 5K the way that is a poem. Anything worth doing is worth doing badly.

  2. Jennifer

    Well, you may or may not be able to “run” a 5k, but you can definitely “do” a 5k. Walkers and run-walk interval-ers do 5ks all the time. And even marathons. I’ve interval-ed marathons in anywhere from 5.5 hours to just short of 7 hours. I still got a medal when I mostly walked.

  3. Ana

    I’m with Jennifer! My first (and only) 5K and i ran-walked it. The best feeling of accomplishment was crossing the finish line. Go for it!

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