Sixes and Sevens

I woke this morning to temperatures of 25F. It was frosty and still - beautiful running weather.  This is when my running really comes to life.  My schedule called for 12 miles, and since my old group at Round Rock Fit were also scheduled to run 12, I decided to head up there and say hello to everyone.

It was great to see all my old friends again, and I was looking forward to chatting away the miles, but I found I'd opened up a huge gap within the first half mile, and ended up running alone.  I wondered why everyone was running so slowly until I realized they weren't - it was just that I was running 6:50s.

Last year when I was one of the coaches I often ran sweeper for the group, so I never got the chance to do the whole run at my natural pace.  But after running for myself the past few months, and building up my speed over 10 and 20 miles, I really saw the difference today.

I have done several runs before where I've managed a sub-7 minute mile, but I've never been able to string a series of sub-7s together.  But when I hit the first 3 miles all around 6:50 pace, I started to wonder if I could do the whole run at a sub-7.

So taper and easy run went out the window and a sub-7 finish became my new goal for the day.

And I did it - by 2 seconds.  I finished the 12 miles in 1:23:58 (6:59 pace), and sneaked home courtesy of a 6:42 last mile.  I really had to dig deep, but I was super proud of myself.  That was a barrier I've wanted to break down for quite a long time, and I had no idea that today would be the day I got it.

Yeah, maybe not the easy taper run I should have done, but a great mental boost before White Rock.  I can only hope we have the same weather conditions for the race.