A new level?
Today: 4.00 miles
Week: 15.00 miles
March: 15.00 miles
2010: 167.93 miles
Today’s run really surprised me. The first mile is always the slowest – warming the body up after just crawling out of bed and all – but I noticed near the end of it that I was under 10:00 pace. That was nice. I had planned to do the whole run at something just under 10:00 so I was on target.
A little ways into mile 2 I looked at my Garmin and it said I was averaging around 9:15 for the lap. Again, I’ve set the display to show average pace for the lap, so it wasn’t just some momentary spike. Part of me said that I should slow down, but I felt really comfortable at that pace. Heart rate was in a fine range, definitely not pushing it at all. So I just stayed the course. Then, two women runners came out of a side street a bit up ahead of me and started running in the same direction. They were going just slightly slower than me, so it was either slow down to their pace and creepily run just behind them, keep running at the pace I was running and creepily slowly pass them, or pick up the pace a bit and pass them like I meant it. So I passed them, we smiled and said good morning to each other and I went merrily on my way. Next time I did a pace check I was at something like 8:46. Whoa. I was still pretty comfortable, but realized I couldn’t hold that pace forever. Slowed down some and finished off mile 2 at 8:55.
Miles 3 and 4 I was starting to feel a bit tired, but not bad at all. All told, the splits were:
9:51
8:55
9:11
9:08
Overall pace: 9:17
These are amazing splits for me, given the level of (non)exertion I felt. HR was 145 average, and maxed out at 153. I was just looking back at a somewhat similar run from two months ago, January 8, a 3-miler. Overall pace was 9:19, with splits of 9:47, 9:24, and 8:46. Average and max heart rates were 152 and 166. That’s a lot more exertion for a shorter run at similar pace. It gives me hope that if I can keep up that kind of improvement over the next 2-3 months, I’m going to have a rocking half marathon.
I know a lot of people have a goal of a sub 2-hour half. That’s what I’m going for and I’m pretty confident about it right now. Not sure I could pull that off right now – probably not quite. But with 12 weeks of training, if my body keeps responding like it has been, I am pretty sure I can pull it off.
Half marathon training starts in 4 days. It’s actually going to be an initial cutback in mileage for me. I’m tempted to push the mileage a bit, but it’s also going to be 5 days running instead of my current 4 days, which also means one less rest day. So I think I better do it by the book at first anyway and see how that goes.
