6 Mile Run

Yesterday was the start of week 5 of my training and we kicked off the week with a 6 mile run. 6 miles… I never thought in my wildest dreams that I would run 6 miles. That means that I have run almost half of my half marathon distance and over half of the Crim (10 miles). My dreams of doing both this year don’t seem as far fetched as they used to.

The run itself was pretty close to perfect. We were on a heat advisory, but it started raining right as I arrived at the meeting place. A light steady rain that was just enough to cool you down without making things harder. The only bad part was my cheap waterproof sunblock was running into my eyes. That will teach me to forget my good sunblock next time.

My group was pretty small this time – just me and my trainer. One of the other members moved up a group and the other didn’t show up. We started out with 45/30s which is 45 seconds of running and 30 seconds of walking, but 30 seconds was a little too short of a recovery time for me so we upped it to 45/45s.

I absolutely love running intervals! I can do so much more and actually end up faster than without them. I also find it funny that even though I am slower than everyone else and do the smaller intervals the other groups don’t end up that farther ahead. We started a few minutes earlier than everyone this time, but it took almost 4.5 miles for all the groups to pass us. And even then they were in our sight line for a long time after they went by.

It is a little depressing to be the slowest in the group – so slow they made a special group just for you. However, I keep telling myself that it isn’t the speed that matters but the mileage. I have plenty of years to focus on getting faster, but this year it is all about finishing!

Here are some stats from the run. The total time includes waiting at several lights so I am guessing my pace was closer to 16:25. Also before I modified the GPS path to be more accurate each mile was about the same pace – which is great!