Tuning Up

Yesterday's disappointing run was apparently short lived. Today, I ran possibly my best run yet. I did a 6 mile out and back along Kelly Drive and really pushed myself.

I did some really slow jogging for a few minutes, before taking off on the timed 6 mile run. I felt strong and fast early on. I tried to cruise along and settle into a slightly difficult pace. I was thrilled when I hit the mile marker at 7:22. I thought that was about as fast as I could run.

I continued to stay smooth and fast. My breathing was a little hard, but I felt I had more left. I was amazed again when I hit the 2 mile mark under 15 miles. I knew the pace would wear me out, so I back off a bit in the 3rd and 4th miles. I ran them pretty well too though.

I hit a head wind between 1.5 miles and 2.5 miles. That was kind of tough and slowed me down. I kept solid form though and battled on. The weather was tricky because it felt really cold. I was debating whether or not to wear a long sleeve shirt or not. Once I saw a girl in short sleeves and shorts, I decided that was the way to go. It worked perfectly for this fast run with a temperature in the low 50s.

I wore some new gloves too. They are medium weight gloves and I really like them. I thought I might get too sweaty in those temperatures, but that didn't happen until the end. I might wear them during the marathon. We shall see.

Once I hit the final 2.5 miles, I took it up a notch. I kept focusing on the short term. I ran so hard that I started developing some slight side stitches. My breathing was hard too. I kept pushing and mentally talked to myself to keep going.

My legs didn't respond quite as well as I had hoped at the end. They didn't die, but there was no extra juice either. I probably should've went out just slightly slower. That could've made me a lot faster in the end. That said, I did run a faster second half, so it's still positive. I blew by a bunch of people. I struggled through the last half mile, but didn't slow much.

It felt so good to run this fast. The plan coming into the run was to go very hard. I definitely did that. There sure wasn't much left in the tank after that one. I hope I can push that hard through the final 6 miles of the marathon. That would be huge.

One thing I do need to do is get up earlier to adjust to the marathon starting time of 7 AM. I just have trouble getting out of bed early in the morning during this cold time of year. I ran late in the afternoon today. I'll try to get up at 7 AM tomorrow to run my easy 3 miler. We'll see how that works out.

I'm very happy about today though. I figured that this would be about my race pace for a 10k, not just a training run. I could probably go under 7 minutes easily for a 10k race right now. I'm definitely making progress. I really can't wait to add speedwork too.

6 miles - 43:29 (7:15 pace)