Just run and see what happens.

Adjust at your next race.

I think I would try and hit 7:00-7:10 1st mile split then adjust up or down on how you feel. Since you haven't raced in a while being a bit conservative is not such a bad thing.

Don't look at your gps or watch. Just run. It's a 5k, if you blow up it isn't that big a deal, you can do another in a week or two.

First mile comfortably hard
Second mile uncomfortably hard
Third mile painfully hard

Don't over think it.

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Suffer Well.

"The best pace is a suicide pace...."- Pre

Which seldom worked out well but my memory is getting kinda fuzzy for these things.

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They constantly try to escape from the darkness outside and within
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Fuzzy indeed. Pre set a number of American records, won the National championships a few times, and won a number of NCAA championships

...and yet, still not relevant.

The version of this I'd heard before was:

Go out hard 1st mile
Pick it up 2nd mile
Empty the tank 3rd mile. ; )

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float , hammer , and jog

I don't even wear Garmin for 5K.
Just figure out mile 1, 2 and 3 marks and redline all the way.
It's just too short to figure out the pace.
Give everything you got and hope for the best.

I knew this response would come up eventually in this thread. Even 800 meter runners "figure out the pace" for their race. Saying you can't in a 5K is moronic. Saying you're "redlined" the whole way is, too.

To the OP, of course you pace yourself. You should get Jack Daniels' book and look up the V-dot tables in the back to estimate your 5K pace based on past and recent running. In general, if you get through the first mile and say to yourself "I'm gonna die," you've started too hard.

I would definitely use a garmin. I'm a triathlete and not a runner and I find it helped me from making some huge mistakes. I set my 5k PR over Thanksgiving at a turkey trot. I hadn't run a 5k in years, but I had run my first 10k a few weeks prior and had been really happy with the results. I based my pacing goal for my 5k off my 10k which had been 6:11/mile pace at 5300 feet elevation (I paced that based on my 6:25ish paced olympic tri runs this season). I hoped maybe to hold 5:55 for the 5k at sea level based on that. Early in the run, I felt great, pace felt sustainable and I figured everything was cool. I looked down at my garmin and saw 4:50! So I tried to slow down. I felt like I was going a lot slower. Looked at my garmin again... 5:25. I had to work really hard to get myself down to 5:50. I never would have known I was going so fast without the garmin and I would have blown up big time. At about 2.2 miles things started feeling really tough and I slowed down to about 6:15, which I would not have known without the garmin. Looking at that I was able to realize I was not pushing as hard as I could and managed to drop the pace again and come in at an average of 5:48. Mile 1 5:46, mile 2 5:52, mile 3 5:34.

You don't have the recent race history on which to base your race, but I bet you have a gut feel of what is realistic based on your recent runs. Go with that.

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Ed O'Malley
www.VeloVetta.com
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2000m comfortable
2000m hard
1000m all ya got

That's what I do. I've done so many 5K races almost every Sat during the season, so I have a great gut feeling and it's spot on.

lol...if you say so.

That was a soundbite from a 120mpw runner who runs sub 14 5ks. This quote was probably more likely meant as some sort of competitive/intimidation tactic rather than actual advice.

How is that relevant to an experienced runner, yet novice at 5ks, looking at a 20-22 5k?

There is way better advice in this thread that is actually applicable.

This last weekend, I did a "paint your pet" workshop. I'm no artist. It looks like crap. If someone asked Da Vinci to sum up how to paint well in 5 words, do you really think I would've done any better?

It was more than just an intimidation tactic. Pre was known to actually run that way. And there were occasions where he blew up (72 Olympics). The fact that the OP is not likely to run sub 14's is irrelevant to his own personal race strategy. Everyone, even a 10 per mile runner, has a red-line (suicide, in Pre's words) pace where they can hold it for that particular distance before they no longer can. However, you have to go there in order to know where that limit is.

You don't have the recent race history on which to base your race, but I bet you have a gut feel of what is realistic based on your recent runs. Go with that.

^^^This. Where this is the OP's first go at a 5k, they have a sense of where they currently are at fitness/ability-wise based on the track workout listed. 5ks can involve a lot of trial and error where it is easy to go out too hard and blow it in the first mile. I agree in general with the approach listed above of hard 2000m, harder 2000m, balls out last 1000m, which is going to vary for each runner. In this case where its the first one for the OP they should go with what feels right/realistic and then adjust accordingly in each race going forward.

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"You can never win or lose if you don't run the race." - Richard Butler

If you're running 10x300m at around 5:50, then you should be able to hold 6:00 for a 5k. I would go out around 6:00 and if you can speed up after a mile. But really, I wouldn't overthink this. 5K is a pretty easy race to run on feel. Unless you just totally go out at suicide pace, you shouldn't see more than a 30 second spread from your first to last mile even in the worst of paced races. Just remember, if you're considering quitting at mile 2, you're right where you need to be :)

I have this saying related to sprint tri's: How do you know if you're going hard enough? You can taste it.

Same for a 5K.

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Understood, but still..."red-line" and "suicide pace" or other such phrases listed above are all misnomers. They absolutely require pacing and without 5k race history, the OP doesn't have such knowledge.

Pre blowing up in 72 meant that he probably was at some pace for a 4.7k or similar such number. So yeah, it was suicide pace, but he absolutely knew that it would be close and just maybe be able to finish the full distance...but probably not. The point is, what is suicide pace for someone with a well tuned sense of pacing is actually still very strictly paced.

How is that relevant to someone who does not have anywhere near the precision in feeling pacing? Telling someone to go flat out will usually end up with the classic U-shaped pace plot. It'll be something like a minute slower than others' advice above, along the lines of: 1st mile push, 2nd hard, 3rd hurts...or whatever.

this, but with the bold emphasis - this is just your first race back, of what will hopefully be many more. there is a reason why most 5km runs are weekly series - you use them to find and then push your boundaries. if you blow up then its not far to walk back, if you go too easy you can sprint past people at the end and adjust next week. as long as you're not injuring yourself its all good

This is my experience. When I'm in the final km with my breathing rate faster than once per step and my arms are feeling tingly and getting borderline tunnel vision - that's my limit.

Agreed. I did many fast 5k races in my late 20s it was always that formula.

First half mile was moving really really fast but 'felt easy"
First mile mark was ok I'm starting to feel the beginning of the pain to come.
Right in the middle of the second mile was ok, time to increase the throttle one more notch and hang on. <-getting uncomfortable
Hang onto that but stay "loose" until about 2.9 <-even more uncomfortable
Full throttle to the end. Ouch. <why do I do this.

That can't be right, can it?

3000m at 5:50 pace you could run 5000m at roughly 6:00 pace but it was 10x300m with recoveries, that's a fair difference.