Timed Mile... Again

Justin, Lisa and I went over to the F&M track and ran a timed mile again. We ran a 1.5 mile warmup over to the track and then walked one lap to "mentally prepare". Then... we were off. I was pretty sure that I hadn't pushed it to the limits with my 6:26 mile a couple weeks ago and I knew that having Justin running with me would push me to run faster... And, I was right.

We came through the first quarter in 1:27 (we were shooting for flat 1:35 splits), woops. But, that really evened out in the second lap (just like last time) where I ran a 1:41. The third lap was similar to last time (1:39 v 1:37) and the final lap came in at 1:29 (super fast). Total time... 6:18!!!

So... what did I learn?

1. I ran 8 seconds faster when I had a "rabbit"(Justin) to chase. That's significant.
2. The first and last quarter were REALLY fast. I'm wondering if I should be shooting for more even splits.
3. I'm getting faster... This time last year I ran a 6:49 mile and this year I cut it all the way down to 6:18. 31 seconds on the mile time is a big deal.

I'm Fast and This is Easy...

I went on a six miler over lunch today with Lisa and Justin... As is ritual (since I have the Garmin), I email out the stats for the run to both of them. Also... as is pretty normal, Lisa skipped out on the second three miles and went back to work. So, Justin and I continued on.

Justin and I have also been toying with a sub 9 minute mile month. I've never done that before and I'm fairly deep into the month and still keeping up. After the first three miles of our run, we were a little behind pace.

9:32
9:12
8:52

But, with the sub 9 minute goal in mind... Justin and I really cranked it up for the last 3 miles. And boy did we.... here are the splits for the last three miles.

8:30
7:48
7:32

I'd say that's considerably less than sub 9. In fact, even though it was a slow first 3, we still averaged 8:30's over 6 miles. Not too shabby...

Now for the explanation of the title of this post... Vanilla over at Half-Fast wrote a hilarious post a while back that I now consider classic ("That Wasn't Me You Saw Running") where he talks about how everything comes back to, "I'm fast and this is easy". Read the post, seriously... it's great. Anyhow, that's what I told Lisa when we got done with the final 3 miles. And, I kinda believe it at this point...

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...