A Redeeming Time

Today I ran my 5.02 mile trail (I've seen wild pig and two cotton-tail rabbits on this trail!) and finally brought along a watch. I was a little more motivated than usual due to what happened last time I ran and it was a cool morning which felt great. I set off with a goal in mind of 43 minutes. Two weeks ago I ran a 5 mile loop around my house and that's how long it took. I figured running .2 miles more in the same amount of time would show sufficient progress (especially considering the result from two days ago).

I made it to the half-way mark in 20:09 (8:02/mile). I was still feeling really good at this point and excited to see that if I could keep pace that I would really beat my goal. As I continued I realized that if I could run a negative split on the back half of the run that I could break 40 minutes.

I'm usually pretty good at math but apparently there is a significant drop off in my ability to calculate while I'm running. More than once have I done a calculation mid-run only to find out afterward that I was way off. Today was no exception.

For some reason I thought I was just under 9:00/mile (which I was happy with) but if I could run a negative second-half it would mean a sub 8 minute average (which I really did not expect). Well, I finished in 39:00 exactly. And, after catching my breath, I realized was 7:46/mile. Very happy with that.

Mike