Speeding

Today was the first day of speedwork in my half-marathon training plan. I was looking forward to it since I haven't run fast in what seems like years. The plan called for four miles of marathon pace running, but I ended up doing three. I took The Boy out for two miles of slow running to prep him for Saturday's 5k and dropped him off at the house when we'd gone that far. Then I lowered the hammer and took off. My plan classifies 8-minute miles as marathon pace. I started out trying to keep it under 9 minutes/mile and found as distance rolled by under my shoes that I was getting faster. For the most part I was under 8:30, with quite a bit closer to 8:00. I was definitely ready to slow down by the time I reached mile 5 and even walked up a hill a few minutes later. All in all it felt good to stretch it out.

I was thinking about this weekend's race and whether or not I should try to run it fast. My feeling is that it's an invitation to injury since I haven't raced in a while. I proved today I can run three miles at a good clip still, but I'm still leaning toward just running with the kids and enjoying it. Or maybe I'll size up the competition when I get there and decide if I have a chance to win or not. We'll see.