Not long ago, in my power of poop post about running, I documented how I’d been struggling to reach the run speeds I had been accustomed to all through my 20s and 30s. How ever since I spent my last birthday waylaid with a nasty ear infection, I haven’t been able to crack sub-30 minute 5K times since, and how it was really affecting my general confidence and morale. Yes, I know that Father Time is undefeated and age does eventually catch everyone at some point, but it’s the story of my life to fighting it off as long as I can, and I didn’t really feel like it was my time yet to give into inevitability.
Welp, with the season finally seemingly changing to actual fall now, where the mornings are crisp and cool, I’m pleased to say that it’s been helping my overall run speeds, and, knock on wood, but I’ve been getting some of my old swiftness back, and I’ve been able to crack sub-30s again.
The first time it happened, I remembered thinking how I felt a little bit faster, and that I wasn’t getting as fatigued, presumably since the cooler air was keeping my body at a better running temperature, but when I was watching my tracker, I was elated to see myself pass the 3.11mi mark with a time that had a leading 2 instead of a 3, and although I beat it by just nine seconds at 29:51, the goal was still met, under 30 minutes.
One time could be a fluke, so I didn’t think that much of it, but then the next run was even better, shaving almost an entire minute off that at 28:25, but the next day was also under 30 minutes, and then this whole post started to formulate in my mind, about how amazing it is that just the weather getting cooler is such a massive contributor in the improvement of my running performance entirely.
Obviously, there are many obvious reasons for this that are no-brainer explanations, but all the same, I’m very pleased to see that, even if it’s weather-aided, I’m getting back to sub-30s, and it actually encourages my desire to run a little bit more than when I was constantly struggling and failing to hit my goals.
It makes me think of my old car enthusiast days, where cold-air intakes were the go-to first upgrade most people made in their rides, and how they always had long pipes that were always situated near the bottom of the engine bays, with promises that sucking in cooler air from away from the heat-generating motor would guarantee horsepower gains of upwards of 5-10 horsies. I mean the science behind it is as obvious as it is with humans, but at least it lets me make a The Fast and the Furious reference that I think about it whenever I think about cold air intakes.
All the same, I’m pleased enough with this boost in personal human performance to where I want to write about it, but I also find myself not dreading run days as much as I was when I felt that getting back to sub-30s was beginning to feel like an impossibility.
Late edit: just ran a 27:48 5K time the morning before I posted this. Love this shit