Six Down, Seven to Go

After my horrible mile repeats earlier this week, I got really concerned about being able to run a 9-minute pace for any length of time. I really dislike wearing a watch when I run but decided I really needed to watch my pace on a tempo run and see if I could run a nine minute pace.

My other problem is that I have a tendency to start races way too fast. That's the problem with having a competitive type A personality. I see other people take off and I want to take off after them - even in a race with 35,000 other people. I just get caught up in a faster pace at the beginning of a race and crash and burn later. Last year, I ran my first mile in 8:36. I just couldn't contain myself! I spent the first 4 miles trying to slow myself down, the next 3 miles crashing, and the rest of the race burning. It was NOT pretty!

I found a 10K to run this morning. My plan was to stick to a 9-minute pace no matter what everyone else was doing. So here's how it went:

Mile 1 - 8:54
Mile 2 - 8:52
Mile 3 - 8:56
Mile 4 - 8:47
Mile 5 - 8:53
Mile 6 - 8:54
last 0.37 - 3:11 (8:32 pace)

YES!!! I can hold this pace for at least 6 miles! Now if I can do it for seven more, I'll be set.

I did start out too fast. My Garmin told me I was running a 7:28 pace at the 0.3 mile mark. I really slowed down the last half of my first mile. The course was longer than a 10K too. I talked to several other people at the finish who had tracked their run and they all had between 6.3 to 6.4 miles on their watches. It was a little race. No timing chips or anything fancy so the official time was the gun time. My gun time was 56:30. My Garmin time was 56:26. In any case, I also got this too...

2nd Place F40-44

Yup, it was a little race... but I'm starting to feel a little better about my running.
Week 8 is done. 24.5 miles. Three more weeks to go! Yikes!