Something pretty amazing happened yesterday: I ran a 23:00 5k. Not 23:29 or 23:01 rounded down. Twenty-three flat.

My last 5k PR was achieved this past September when I had a bit of a cold. The course was fairly flat* and my previous best wasn’t too stellar, so I didn’t have too much difficulty in setting a new one.

Somehow in just a couple of months, with no specific 5k training (and granted, no cold either), I sliced nearly three minutes off of my 5k time. I went out fast (like 7:02 fast) and managed to hang on without slowing down too much. I must be making progress and doing something right!

*I once ran a race that was entirely in a parking lot and I’d call that full-on flat. Tracks are full-on flat. Most races that bill themselves as flat aren’t actually full-on flat, so I always qualify the term “flat” when I use it in describing a race course.