A Milestone

So today, being a Friday, is pace day. Basically, running some miles at the goal pace of my next race.

Now my schedule is a little up in the air: I have a half in early May, but I don't have anything concrete between now and then. So I have tentatively decided I will do a 10k in about 5 weeks. Haven't fully decided what the time goal would be but I'll work that out this weekend. Over the next 4 Fridays I will do the following workouts....

1. 3x1 mile at goal pace, with 3-4 minutes rest
2. 2x2 mile at goal pace, with 3-4 minutes rest
3. 3x2 mile at goal pace, with 3-4 minutes rest
4. 1x5k at goal pace

Then hopefully I am able to do 2x5k with zero rest on the day! Since I haven't worked all of the dubious science to determine an exact race day goal, I somewhat arbritarily picked 39:00, which is 1:24 faster than my last 10k.

So today I set out with a plan for 3x1 mile at 6:16 pace. (It's interesting to note that 6:16 is faster than my best ever 5k pace, and only 6 seconds slower than the fastest mile I have run in the last 25 years).

After warmup of a couple miles I go for mile 1 - start fast but settle at 6:06, and hold it pretty comfortably for the whole mile. 4 minutes jog recovery and then it's number 2 - do this one at 6:07, still feeling reasonably under control. So I get the idea for #3 that I'll try to go sub-6. Now sub-6 for a mile is something that I should be able to do based on my performance at longer distances, but the fact remains I have not run a sub-6 mile since I was 15.

So off I go, first half at 2:59, second half in 2:58 for a total of 5:57 - my new 1 mile PR! Very happy with that. Now all I have to do is take another 2 minutes off that and I may be considered a serious runner.