One pitfall that I’ve fallen into is not being able to push the pace as necessary on my runs. The beauty of this run is that it was both the second run of the day and got me to 25 miles in two days:
- The first mile went off at a nice, steady, 9 minute pace.
- The second mile was a nice, comfortable, easy stride–8:18.
- Miles 3 and 4 I pushed the pace a little–8:01 and 7:51.
- The final mile I pushed for a 6:30 pace and was on track for at least 6:40 when my cough reared its ugly head. I broke stride and jogged out the remainder of the mile for a 6:54 pace.
- The last 0.7 mile was a recovery jog at a nice 8:21 pace still.
I don’t know that I’ve ever run a sub-7 mile before without being in an actual race or on the treadmill. I just haven’t had the will to push the pace that much on my own. Today was a small breakthrough.