Ramping towards FIRST
I decided that it would be good to start adding some faster pace medium to long runs since I am getting closer to kicking off my FIRST training for the Lehigh Valley Half-Marathon. I’m fine with short and fast (mile and 5k races) and long and slow (runs over 14 miles), but I feel pretty intimidated by the middle ground. To help remedy this, I hit the Conewago trail late this morning figuring I’d try to get in 6 or 7 miles at around a 7:30 pace and see how it felt. I took the first mile at an easy warm-up pace in 8:54 and then started to pick it up. I hit the 2nd mile at 7:29, 3rd at 7:27, 4th at 7:24 and did a slow circle to turn around and head back. The 5th mile was a 7:28, 6th a 7:21. At this point I was still feeling pretty good so I decided to push the pace a little more. As I was getting close to ending the 7th mile I was doing some mental calcultions and it seemed like I had an outside chance of hitting 8 miles in under an hour, which I’ve only done once before (at the HARRC 10 miler, my best medium distance run yet). I ended up clocking a 7:10 7th mile and then started pushing as hard as I could and hit the 8th mile in 6:38, beating an hour by a few seconds. I felt pretty jazzed after the run and celebrated/re-fueled by chowing down on a Neato Burrito with Mark Rebuck.