Start time: 3/3/07, 10:00am
Location: W&OD Trail
Distance: 12 miles
Run:Walk ratio: none (miles 1-9), then 7:1 (10-12)
Average pace: 9:23min/mile

Apparently everyone decided to take advantage of the nice weather today; I managed to see no less than four people I knew while out running. I saw Katie and Julie about 4.5 miles into the run as they were getting into their cars, Noel was coming around the bend a quarter mile later, and Laura D. from work was out riding her bicycle (with one of her daughters strapped in on the child seat) around mile 10. Fun!

Oh yeah, the run itself. I definitely went out of the gate too fast; it probably didn’t help that because of my roundabout route (start at marker 3.5, run to marker 2, turn around and run out to marker 8, then back to 3.5) the first mile and a half are a slight downhill grade, meaning that those got hit pretty quickly (8:58, 8:57). From there, things fell into a groove and I was pretty consistant through mile 6 (9:19, 9:10, 9:03, 9:15). Since the farthest in the past month I’ve run at this particular speed was 5.4 miles, it really shouldn’t be surprising that I then began to run out of gas. I pushed through three more miles (9:34, 9:39, 9:39) and then decided to see what would happen if I started adding in some walk breaks. I figured the first mile would go slower, but future miles would then benefit from the brief rest. Sure enough, the final three just about hit that pattern (9:56, 9:28, 9:36).

Had this been the actual half marathon? Well, if you added on another 1.1 miles and went with a pessimistic 10:00min/mile speed, that would’ve landed me a finishing time of 2:03. So still a PR, not a sub-2. I’m still mulling over various plans in my head for what to do for the race itself. If I can find someone to pace off of early on so I can save the fuel for the end, that might help. But alternately I can always just plan to shift into adding some walk breaks as need be for the second half. Either way, at this point I’m not concerned about hitting sub-2. Coming off of an injury a month ago, I’m delighted to hit the speed I am. (Still, looking back at the end of December’s 12-miler it’s easy to lament what might have been. Oh well.) Hopefully a PR is still in the stars, though!