I’ve wanted to do a one-mile time trial for a couple of weeks, but for one reason or another we weren’t able to do this until last night. Ben and I joined a local running club for their twice-a-week casual group run, but we kinda did our own thing. First we did a slow half mile warm up (a little faster than a 10-min mile). Then Ben paced me at a 7:30 min/mile on the Newport waterfront boardwalk. The first half mile was fine and nothing hurt. Then my breathing got really labored and I developed a severe side stitch with about a quarter mile left. I ignored the pain and kept running hard. Finally at the end of the mile, Ben’s Garmin read 7:35. A new PR!
I never ran so fast before in my life. I was really grateful to have Ben because I doubt I would have kept up that pace on my own. I probably would have slowed down another 10-15 seconds.
After our run we had fun putting in my new PR into the McMillan Running Calculator to see what my equivalent race times would be. The times I received for my 5K and half-marathon (26:26 and 2:02:25, respectively) are quite accurate for what I feel that I’m capable of achieving right now. I also use a pace calculator app called Runner’s Ally. Its projected times for a 5K and half-marathon (25:13 and 1:55:55, respectively) are far more aggressive, but I feel that these are times that I could achieve with 2-3 months of hard work.
I’m contemplating whether I should do the Newport Liberty Half Marathon on Sept 23rd. I’ve already signed up for Paine to Pain Trail Half Marathon on Oct 14th. I can’t recover fast enough to race both half marathons. I may treat the Newport Half as a training run or I could race the Newport Half and do the Paine to Pain as a fun trail run. I still have a while to decide. If the weather is nice, I may end up racing the Newport Half to get a PR.
A Fast Paced Life 