learned it yesterday, applied it today.

so i ran with my friend from work, John, at lunch yesterday. for the first time during training, a mid-week run was more than 3 miles. so we did a 3.85 mile loop that starts and ends across the street from work.

i felt like i was holding him back, like my natural pace was slower than he wanted to go. but i pushed myself and kept up. and then when we got to the last corner, a quarter mile from the end, i decided to push myself and run hard to the end. i ended up finished in 35:54, which is an 8:48 pace. but apart from having pushed myself, i realized i had a lot more energy at the end than i thought i would. i realized that i could have been pushing myself harder throughout the rest of the run and finished much faster overall.

so i went out for a 3.25 mile loop this evening. i ate a large lunch, so i kind of felt like taking it easy. but i started rather quickly and decided to stick with it, pushing myself. i finished the first mile at 7:41. the second mile was at 15:32 (7:51). my final time was 24:47, for a total pace of 7:55. i nearly died during my first run at a 7:54 pace for barely more than a mile.

there is a lot more inside me, and i can push myself harder than i thought. i will be a lot more diligent about interval training on tuesdays now. it will be interesting to see my pace for the nine mile run. i am going to try monitoring only my heart rate during the run, and not peeking at time. i don't know where the mile markers are, anyway, so i guess it doesn't matter. but i wonder if my pace will improve for the long runs, too.

my friend from work, Amy, ran the chicago marathon five or so years ago. she said her training pace was pretty much her racing pace. so i am definitely in line to finish at a 10:00 pace. we'll see if that improves as training progresses.

but my confidence for saturday's run is very high. i will be very conscientious about eating tomorrow to prepare for it. the weekend runs are getting long enough that i have to worry about nutrition beforehand as well as hydration during. soon enough i will also have to worry about energy during the run. i'm not sure what i will do about it, but i think i may try solid food first. i've heard too many horror stories of bad GI reactions to energy gels.

robb.