u/Interesting_Fly1696

I'm considering signing up to Runna for the 5k Improvement plan in a month. One of my goals this year is to go sub-30 (current PB is 33:10), and it seems like people have really liked this plan.

I have a 10k race in a month, and after that I would be able to do the plan, targeting an early October race for my PR attempt, so 16 weeks.

I played around setting up the plan the other day, and I have a couple questions:

1. Not sure how to classify myself as beginner, intermediate, or advanced. According to the definition on this screen, I would be advanced because I can run over 6 miles and I already do training that includes various speed work, but I've only been running for 11 months and my starting point less than a year ago was "Can't run 5 minutes without stopping." I'm very cautious about avoiding injury so the idea of saying I'm advanced makes me nervous.
2. How flexible is the plan to last minute holidays or doing a different run from the plan's suggestion? I have two random, no-goal 5ks I want to do in July for fun, and then in August I'll be traveling on three different weekends, one of which will be a trip to Colorado (so, sudden altitude change). Right now my plan is to still run on those trips, but I'm expecting the unexpected and may need to adjust if I run into sleep issues or travel illness.

I live near a segment of the trail, so I'm interested in people's experiences and keep tabs over here in case the opportunity arrives to give someone a ride or something. I'd heard of Emma's story before but picked up a copy of Grandma Gatewood's Walk at a local bookstore last week.

I'm about halfway through the story (and she's 350 miles from Katahdin), and I keep wondering how much of what she did back then would be feasible here in the 2020s.

Limited preparation, no sleeping gear or tent, very little food, very basic shoes, no hiking poles, no map (and certainly no cell phone), relying on meals and housing from strangers pretty often...

I feel like the hardest bits these days would be stuff like foraging for food (basically not possible now) and getting free food or places to stay from locals. Have you encountered folks on the trail who went out with very little prep, who still made it along the way in recent years?

We've lived here, in the same house, for three years now, and I've never seen a single tick. This year, we've found six dog ticks in the past month -- four on the dog (not attached because he's on preventative) and two on me.

Because of the rain this spring, we haven't even been out in the woods, so this is all just from our back yard. Yesterday, I mowed the lawn. I was in jeans, knee-high socks, boots, and a long-sleeved shirt. Didn't spray Off on myself like I have been because I was fully covered in clothes.

A few hours later, I found a tick attached on my lower back.

We've got preventative on the dog and both cats, but there's definitely a big nest of these suckers in our yard somewhere.

If you have pets or spend time outside, make sure you're using sprays, collars or drops on animals, etc this year, even if you're not going out in Michaux and such, and check yourself in the mirror when you come back in.

I'm seven weeks out from the race where I'd like to PR my 10k time, and five months away from the race where I'm hoping to run my first sub-30 5k, so I still have a lot of time to prepare.

When I started running last year, age 38, I came from a background of never in my life having been able to run a mile without stopping to walk. So, my focus was always on making sure I conserved my energy to make it to my goal distance.

My long runs and races usually end up pretty steadily negative split. I start out basically at a warm-up pace and then gradually up my speed while keeping my effort pretty much the same. I like this strategy because it feels natural, and it generally means that after the first bit, I'm always passing people rather than being passed.

When I see the finish line, I always have enough gas in the tank for a sprint, so I floor it for the last 100-200m. There are a few seconds where I gasp or stumble from sprinting, but I catch my breath pretty quickly, and then I'm able to go about my day, walk around, still be active the rest of the day because I didn't really go that hard over all.

My most recent 5k time was a new PB of 33:10, but in speed runs I'm usually doing "5k pace" intervals at around a 9:50-9:30/mile pace, and in a 5 mile race last week my fastest mile - the last mile of the race - was a 10:04. So I feel like I'm very much in the right spot, pace and effort-wise, that I could be going harder, and that 29-something is very much in reach, but I can't quite seem to get the right mindset to really give it my all in a way that doesn't just blow the race on mile three.