Two PRs In A Week
This past week has been a pretty intense stretch of training. I actually ended up hitting personal records twice this week for pace and for distance.
Tuesday, I had an easy 3 miler scheduled and the weather was pretty great. At that point, I hadn't been able to run much recently due to weather and travel so, without realizing it, I got a little wound up and was moving along at an abnormally fast pace for me. When I got my audio cue at the half mile mark and heard that my average pace was in the low 8 minute per mile range, I got even more fired up at the prospect of beating my 5k time goal of 25 minutes. I haven't been working towards this goal lately, but I couldn't pass up the opportunity.
My average pace ended up right at 8 minute miles and I beat my 25 minute goal so that was really encouraging even though the next day was incredibly rough when I tried to do 7 miles at my target half marathon pace of 9 minute miles. The 8 minute mile average pace set a pace record for the runs that I've been tracking with RunKeeper and is probably my overall record anyways for that distance.
Then came Saturday when I was determined to break my distance record which previously stood at 10 miles. I have my first half marathon coming up in early April too, so I've been itching to get some long runs in to get a feel for how I'll fare. I love my long run days so I was getting more fired up for this than I was for my record pace 3 miler.
In under two hours, I got my 12 miles in and felt pretty good. My average pace was only off of my target half marathon pace by 16 seconds so I'm feeling more and more confident that with proper preparation in the next few weeks and a good taper, I should be able to crush my 2 hour goal for the half marathon. This long run was the first time I had midrun fuel and water and the difference in how I felt with those additions was amazing. Having a Clif Bar and some water at the 5 mile mark made a night and day difference in both my physical feeling and my mindset for the second part of the run.
After my long run, I realized that I set new records in all but one of the categories that RunKeeper lists in their Personal Records section this week. The only one that stands from before is for elevation and I have a strong feeling that won't change until I run The Bear again this summer. It's kind of amazing that I tracked about 2000 feet of elevation change in the 5 miles or so of The Bear when I apparently logged about 200 in my 12 miler.