2319: Watermelon Classic

Happy Fourth of July!

I started my day off running the 30th annual Watermelon Classic 5K. Twelve weeks of training have led me to this race, and I came in with a Plan A and a Plan B. Plan A: run under twenty minutes — that's 6:26 per mile, and very doable. My training has had me right on track for it. Plan B: go even faster, around 6:16 pace — but only if I'm feeling good around mile 1.5.

The result: 20:43, at an average pace of 6:39 per mile. Not Plan A. But let me tell you how it went.

After mile one, I could definitely feel the toughness of holding a 6:30 mile. Mile two is where I knew I wanted to pick it up — and I did. A 6:25 split, right on pace.

During the final mile, I initially felt myself fading. But something I've been working on this whole block is to run even harder when it gets hard — because I've noticed my legs are typically fine at that point. It's just my breathing. It's more of a feeling: you feel like you want to stop, but you've built the fitness and can actually go even faster. The first quarter mile of the last stretch was a struggle — there was a rolling hill — but as soon as I got to the top, I picked it up and finished the final mile at 6:40, faster than my first mile. Good pacing strategy. I was able to run my race.

What I noticed afterward was that I wasn't using the hills enough to my advantage, especially the downhills. But that's hindsight. I'm proud of my result. And more than anything, this race rejuvenated my love for running. There's something about racing that makes you want to keep pushing.

This training block was tough. I was coming off a half marathon block in the spring, and I felt good holding 20–25 miles per week — I didn't want to let that fitness go. So I chose the higher-mileage program, and the Fleet Feet 5K Fast training began.

I've mentioned pieces of this program before, but here's what stands out now that it's over. This was my first training program built for a 5K — still a distance race, but the shorter, more intense end of it. And it was my first time really training on a track. I enjoyed it more than I expected. Running the roads day in and day out can get monotonous — same routes, same neighborhoods, same loops. The track gave me a different perspective. There's something about a shorter circuit that changes the feel of the work.

This was also my third training block — a half marathon in the fall, another in the spring, and now this 5K program carrying me into summer. And I've noticed a pattern. Toward the end of every block, some kind of fatigue leads to some kind of tweak. My hip. My foot. Or I get sick. It always happens a few days before the race, maybe a week or two out, and it drops me into an uncertain place: Can I run on this? Should I push it? Should I not? I catastrophize. I assume the worst.

This block, it was my foot. It got bad enough that I went in for an X-ray — and the X-ray came back clear. And almost immediately — not literally, but as soon as I walked out of that building on my own two feet — I stopped noticing the pain as much. I felt more confident moving, putting weight on it. Nothing about my foot had changed in those few minutes. Only my mind had.

It made me think about how mental this sport really is. Any sport, honestly — sprinting, distance, basketball, soccer, and football. You can convince yourself you're hurt, you're injured, you can't go any further. But you have to get the mind and body on the same page, because sometimes they're saying two different things. Your mind can be saying no while your body is saying, we're still good. Part of the work is learning to sit with that discomfort and tell the difference.

That's my biggest takeaway from this program: you're not going to always be 100%. Beginning of training, middle, end — something is going to bother you. It shouldn't be a break or anything bigger than a tweak, but you have to use your mind. You have to have a strong enough mind to say, calm it down. It's a little tweak. It's nothing big. We can keep going.

Peace,

Zechariah Davis

🎵 Song of the Week

Ali Bomaye — The Game ft. 2 Chainz & Rick Ross

📖 Scripture of the Week

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