I’ve been on this one-mile run kick.
It originated out of mope over my slow running times and not really knowing how to work on improving those. So I thought I would just see if I could manage 10 minute miling, but just for 1 mile. To my great satisfaction, I did it.
And then it became my Monday night ritual before Body Pump… the one mile treadmill test.
The first couple of times, I wasn’t really sure that I had truly given it my all; was that the absolute fastest that I could go? But I didn’t know what sort of time I should be shooting before, so I just continued to shave ten or fifteen seconds off my time each week.
Until I got into the 8 minute range. There was an 8:38. Then 8:28 the next week. And 8:21. A two week break while I was in Hawaii, and then just last week I hit 8:10.
I’m not really sure what a good time for a mile is. I know that KERF did a run the other day and the second mile in her 5K was 8:09. Which felt a bit like the interwebs pulling a face at me and going “neener neener neener.” So my single mile in 8 minutes and 10 seconds isn’t record breaking. But it is really fast for me. And it has gotten to the point that it is just really hard and I’m not sure that I can pull a better time just by seeing if I can.
I tried, though, last night. And, well… it was not awesome. I was about 3 minutes into an 8 minute even pace and it just started to suck. Despite all the little voices convincing me that 5 minutes was nothing and that I could totally power through, I slugged out and slowed down to a walk. I caught my breath a bit and then picked up the pace again, fluctuating all over the place trying to figure out how to just finish this one out. Finished in 8:58. So, a bit of a set back.
Maybe now I know that running a mile somewhere around 8:15 to 8:30 is a good challenging pace for me and I should just try to do that a couple of times without trying to shave off seconds every week. Or maybe now I need to see what running 2 miles at 10 minutes per mile feels like.
Because I do really really want to break that 30 minute 5k mark one of these days!
Yeah, and meanwhile, 1/2 marathon training continues, for my second scheduled half of 2011 (or the second one of EVER), on July 31. So my runs are mostly focused on easy paces over longer distances, which means that I’m sort of cheating with all of these little one mile tests for myself.
Does it sound like I’m obsessing much? I feel a little ridiculous myself, I have to admit. I sure spend an awful lot of time thinking about running and reviewing my training schedule and washing an unholy amount of workout clothing for someone who really isn’t very good at it.
So let’s just be grateful for blogs, where I can babble away to my hearts content, and for David’s, who are also interested in running (albeit much better at it than I am) and happy to discuss it all with me at length.
margaret edith 