Next Year’s Goal: Speed!

My marathon is three weeks away.  That means I’ve been doing long distance runs for several weeks.  Three Saturday runs of 20 miles, one at 18 and 5-8 mile runs during the week.  But last Saturday I ran a 5k with my son and his Cross Country team.  It was the first year of this event hosted by a nearby church.  I came in second in my age group but unfortunately they only gave medals to the first place in each age group.  That got me thinking about shorter races and what it would take to be competitive.  It seems every 5k or 10k I’ve done in the last couple of years have had some very fast 50-55 year old guys.  I mean they’re averaging 6:30s or better.  I’m not sure I could get to that speed but then again, why not?  I’ve always been a distance runner not a racer but maybe I’ll give it a shot.