My midweek 2-3 mile run is mostly there to keep my legs loose, give me a fourth day ‘on the road’, and to change it up so that I can try something different from the T/F Half-Distance runs, and the Sunday Long Distance runs.
Last week, I did the two miles pretty easy on the treadmill, padded with almost an extra mile of warmup/cooldown. I ballparked about an 11:00 mile.
Last night, I went out, thoughts from yesterday’s pace analysis flittering in my head, and put my watch under my sleeve. Warmed up with a quick quarter mile around the block, stretched outside, and took off running. I ended up devouring mile 1 in 9:30, with mile 2 at around 10:20. That’s *fast* for me, but I wasn’t really struggling, just… keeping a pace and not watching that watch. I don’t want to repeat that performance too often, since it’s important to me not to strain/injure myself. But maybe that means that a sub-10:00 pace is in my future. Not for this race (12:00 would be a coup, I think), but maybe over the summer I can look at 5k’s and 10k’s and see what it feels like.
Again, not my focus, so don’t worry about me running myself off that particular cliff. But I tell you, it did feel good to see a mile time with only 3 digits.
Wisely and Slow 
yeahhhhhh for you man…that training is starting to pay off! I cant wait to run with you someday soon! Keep up the good work!
Thanks Sherry! I’m looking forward to 8 miles this weekend; that’ll be my first official ‘stretch’ of the training plan, and will be the farthest I’ve ever run.
I think that’s where I’ll see if it’s really paying off or not.
When you visit this summer you 2 can run together and Dan and I can hang out, have a beer.