Relearning Speed

I ran this morning on my Y’s indoor balcony track.  Today was intentionally shorter because I was going for speed.  I have had speed in the past of course.  I needed to show myself that with my increasing fitness this winter it is acceptable to run at faster speeds.  It won't cause me to blow up.

The first mile was a good 8:30.  I kept this pace up for as long as I could into the second mile.  Somewhere in there I slowed down without noticing too much and ended the second one in 10:00.  I didn’t blow up, but I did slow down as I expected.

I know you are probably not impressed with those times.  I can’t compare myself to high school any more.  I used to be able to string together 3.1 miles in the low 17 minute range.  That was around a 5:35 / mi. pace.

I need to compare myself to recent times after I got back into athletics in 2008.  To get back to that level, I need to string together an entire half marathon with 8:30 miles, not just the one I did today.  I did that as recently as 2010.  A longer term goal will be to get the half marathon time down to 1:41:30, or a 7:45 pace.

It doesn’t help that I barely ran in 2011 and didn’t run at all in 2012.  I was focused on the bike those years.  I will get much faster and I am seeing huge improvements already.