Today I ran 10 miles in 1:11:17 which is an average of 7:07 minutes per mile. I did it by doing a little faster than normal warm-up mile and then starting at mile 2 increased the speed to 8.1 mph (7:24 min mile). I continued to increase it by .1 mph at the beginning each mile, finishing the last mile at 9.0 mph and the last 1/4 mile of that at 9.5 mph.
The goal today was to run the 10 miles in 1:22:00 but then gave a conflicting speed to run it at. The 1:22:00 did seem much too slow, but the recommended speed (it was 6:44 min mile pace) seemed much too fast. So I started out thinking if I did it in 1:15:00 I would be happy, sort of half-way between the two. But as I was running not only did I feel better than the past couple of days but I felt I had something to prove to myself. That being, depites all this hard training I can still "step it up" a notch when needed. And I did feel quite good. If I would have kept it around 8.3 or 8.4 mph I could have easily done the half-marathon mileage.
Oh, and the most likely reason I have not been feeling good the last couple of days and why it took so long to recover yesterday is that I was coming down with Strep throat. It was bound to happen with my daughter, Bekah, and granddaughter having it. But if I going to get it, I might as well get it from family : ) Luckily had some antibiotics on hand to thwart it early in its tracks.
BTW, officially that is the fastest 10 miles I have ever ran (and that includes the slower warm-up mile). I beat my PR I set 2 1/2 years ago. Not bad for an old guy ; )
Way to PR, Brian! I can't even imagine going that fast. I did intervals yesterday where I ran at a 9 mph pace for 1/8th of a mile! I can't imagine doing that for miles on end. It's fun to follow your workouts!
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