Thursday, October 9, 2008

One Mile Improvement...

No, I didn't improve by a mile... Actually, I don't even know what that means. But, I did run my timed mile over lunch. Lisa and I jogged a mile and a half over to the Franklin & Marshall track and both looked at each other like, "Do you really want to do this?". The answer in my head was, "No, not really.." But, the answer in my legs was, "Well, we're already here."

So... after one lap of walking around the track we got started. Lisa had run the timed one mile for the office olympics in about 8 minutes. She kinda sandbagged it and wanted to do better. So, she came out to run with me today. She ran a 7:30 mile...!! That's pretty darn good.

As I said before, my previous best (and only timed mile under 7:00 in my life) was last year at 6:49. This year, I was determined to really trash that time. And, I did!!

I started out pretty quick, but wasn't feeling that bad. I was just trying to run on "feel". I was half way through the first lap and had no clue if I was running fast or slow... I was shooting for a 1:36 first 400 and I came in at 1:31... Oh no!!!

So, the second lap I scaled back considerably. In fact, I scaled back way too much and came in at 1:40. So much for even splits... The 3rd lap, which is traditionally the toughest in the mile race wasn't that bad. I came in at 1:38 for that lap.

So, the last lap was just about digging down. But... it really wasn't that bad. I did push the last 100 meters or so. But, I don't feel like I left it all out there. That said, I did my last lap in 1:37. So, overall, I ran a 6:26!!! That's incredible. I had said prior to running it that 6:30 or under would be great. And, my goal was 6:24. So, I didn't miss that by much. We are already planning to go back in 2 weeks and try and leave it all out there.

Could I go sub 6:20? Stay tuned...

8 comments:

stevespeirs said...

How cool will a 6:19 be? Good luck...

--Steve

PS Congrats on the sub-6:30 by the way :)

Bill said...

If your legs aren't tying up towards the end, you definitely have more headroom left. Congrats on smashing your old PR and good luck on your next attempt.

Eric Gervase said...

Can't wait.. going to be very cool

KristenCHealy said...

Congratulations! That's a fantastic time!

Andrew is getting fit said...

Good stuff!

April said...

That's awesome!! The mile is such a tough distance and its very cool that you've decided to tackle it! I betcha all this speedwork is going to make a big impact on your distance running, too...

How is the baby? We need some pictures!:)

Don S. said...

so, that is a mile time or a 1600m time? it makes a huge diff.

Eric Gervase said...

It was actually 1600... but that is what I was measuring last year's time on too. So, you're right.