Eight Mile PR Attempt

Now that I am about 2 months into race training, I am gaining confidence during my runs. I am pushing myself to run faster and further. This weekend, I ran a fast (for me) 5K and 8-miler. 

     Yesterday, I met my friend Melissa at the trail head at 9 AM on Saturday. It was a chilly day, but the sun was out. I had a 3-mile tempo run on the schedule. I ended up running a 5K in about 29 minutes. It was fun to get out and run with a friend! 

Happy with my sub-30 5K time

We went to coffee afterwards. I had an almond milk mocha, and we split a cinnamon scone. It was nice!

Yesterday’s tempo run inspired me to try and run a bit faster for today's 8-mile run. Normally I don’t push myself very hard during long runs.

I’ve read that it’s important to run about 80% of runs at an easy pace and 20% at a hard pace. I have trouble with distinguishing what is “easy,” and I think I can put additional effort into my runs more frequently.

This morning, I had the goal of running my fastest 8-mile run ever. 

The course I ran is a there-and-back, with more uphill on the way out and more downhill on the way back. So, in order to make my goal, I wanted to keep the first 4 miles under a 11 min/ mile pace.

It was pretty easy to maintain this pace the first 2 miles. Unfortunately around mile 3 there was a pretty strong head wind that continued through mile 4. It was pretty rough, but I still managed to keep it around 10:30 min/mile for the first half of the run.

I turned around and was relieved of the wind! However, I immediately smelt a bunch of smoke. My best guess was that a farmer was doing a controlled burn somewhere. The smell was super strong, made it difficult to breath and made me feel sick. I pushed on hoping that there would be less smoke the further away I got. 

By mile 7 the smoke was gone. I turned off the music I was listening to and enjoyed the last couple miles knowing that I’d easily finish fast enough to make this my 8 mile personal record (PR).

The last two miles were in 9:55 and 9:40! I finished in 1:22:49 (average pace of 10:19 min/mile). Success! It was fun to tackle a goal!

I know I can go faster (especially if the weather would cooperate), but this was just a training run. Now I am getting more excited to see how fast I can finish next months’ half marathon!

Officially my fastest 8-mile run! 

Sweaty but happy after making the PR