Beating your time from last week ~ Priceless

OK...it is getting kinda scary around here. I'm starting to do things like track my pace...compare my splits...try to beat the time I did last week....think about speeding up...work on hills...What is going on?!? Is this some weird disease? I think it might be the disease called RUNNING!

We went back out to White Rock Lake again today. I was really tired. I didn't sleep as well last night, and we certainly weren't as well prepared this week as we were last week. We actually hit the snooze once! By the time we both got ready and got on the road it was already 5:30 instead of 5:00, so we had lost a half hour of cool time.

We started our run at about 6:00. There was more wind this week and the temp was in the mid-80's. There were also a TON of gnats out for the first couple of miles! GROSS!

My main goal this week was to improve on my 11:00 mile goal from the week before, so I set myself up to try to keep at a 10:45 pace. I think if I can just inch it up from week to week I will have to keep improving, right? DH took off pretty quickly, and I did a fair job of keeping up with him for the first couple of miles. But I started to worry about dying at the end so I slowed my pace a little. Now, for those that don't know - DH is 6'6" and I am 5"5 (if I stretch a little, lol) so my stride just isn't quite as long as his normally...I have to stretch it out to stay with him!

I checked our time at about the 5K mark and we were doing OK...about 33:05. Not good if all we were running was a 5K, but pretty good when you are doing 9 miles! I checked again at the 10K mark hoping that we would be a little under our time of 1:07:45 from the week before. There it was! 1:06:09, we had shave off a minute and a half! We were doing better!

I grinned at DH and told him we only had 3 more miles to go. Once again my goal was to simply beat our time from last week of 1:39:28. I was again trailing DH, but holding my own...specially after I thought I was going to have to stop and walk around mile 7. I just tried really hard to keep him in sight. He finished and kind of looped around and came back to get me. (He really didn't have to come back very far at all.) He helped me pick up the pace to finish strong and I stopped the Garmin at 1:37:37. A full 1:51 faster than last week. That works out to 48:06 for the first 4.55 miles, and 49:31 for the last 4.55 miles...pretty consistent. Now I'll have to start working on a negative split!

I did notice a few more things this week as well. This week we went forwards around the lake as opposed to going backwards like we did last week. Last week I was amazed at the split for Mile 5 ~ a 10:38 time. Well, this week I found out why...It was almost all downhill! The very last part of that mile, going that direction, is the spillway which is a pretty steep climb. This week we had the steep drop at the beginning of that mile, then the LONG climb for the last part of the mile...and we still did it in 10:26! I guess I did learn something from those hills last week. I'm anxious to get back out there next week and see if I can improve that mile split even more!

I do seem to be getting much quicker on the hills but the flats sometimes drag me down. I'm very glad I have the Garmin, it really keeps me focused. I did feel my toe swelling about mile 5 but toughed it out. By the time I got to the car I had a blister that had popped. This new one is on my fourth toe on my right foot. I think DH and I are going to our favorite running store today to check and see if they can recommend some socks for me so I can stop this toe damage before it gets any uglier!

Next week...goal 10:35 splits (at least 3 - 4 of them!!!)