No Sleep, No Problem! A Personal Best in the 5k to Start 2024

There’s one obvious problem when signing up for a New Year’s Day race, especially for someone with an 8pm bedtime (me). It’s the one night a year when everyone stays up past midnight. Now, I know this isn’t a requirement, but I was hosting a New Year’s Eve party to show off my new house. So, without much thought about the consequences, I signed up for the Forest Park 5k on New Year’s Day.

Fast forward to January 1st, 2024, 1:30am. I start to think that maybe this was a bad idea as the last guest leaves my house and I set my alarm for 6:15am.

6:15am: The alarm goes off and I hate myself. It is really, really hard to get up. I glance at my Garmin which informs me that my sleep was 3 hours and 50 minutes and consisted of “poor recovery.” Helpful.

Despite the voices in my head arguing against it, I bundled up in my winter running clothes, ready to race in 35 degrees Fahrenheit. I drove to Forest Park and met six fellow runners, all Filla Endurance athletes like myself. We set off for our two mile warm up. The group chatted about how they went to sleep early last night and avoided the parties and food. I won the award for least amount of sleep in the group. I started to really doubt my decision making. “You can’t do it all,” I thought. My plan was to race this 5k, but maybe I should just jog it instead.

Lining up at the start, I decide to just push it and suffer as much as needed. I got out of bed to run in the cold- the only way to make up for this was to try and get a new best time. So, I took off.

The first mile was great, speed-wise, but my legs and feet were tingling. I think they were cold, and froze up again after the warm up. It was hard to keep my legs popping, but I told myself to “just hang out at this pace and suffer through it.” This was a hilly course, so I tried to play it smart on the hills.

The second mile felt the best because it had the most downhills. It’s hard to race a 5k because the timing needs to be strategic. It’s such a short distance that there’s not a lot of room for error.

The third mile was hard. It felt long. I kept telling myself that I could hang on for just seven more minutes, five more minutes, three more minutes. My pace was looking great and I was set to get a new personal record in the distance, but it was getting hard. I thought about my half and full marathons on my calendar later in the year and focused on how a fast 5k could help me get my goals in the longer distances. The finish was up a massive hill. I felt my pace fading but hung in there to get to the end. It was a very hard effort but I did it! I beat my previous time by about 15 seconds. The previous time was in March 2023, and I’d raced three or four 5ks since then, so this was a good win!

Now I have extra bragging rights for finally succeeding with the poorest preperation. No sleep, junk food, and a lack of focus got me a new best in the new year. Now, I don’t recommend this and don’t plan to do it again, but it was a fun story and a good personal win! A 22:16 5k (7:11 min/mi).

Results! Always fun to place top 3 in my age group.

My disappointed watch

It was fun to ring in the new year with friends