We had 6 of us CRAZIES ready to run today. We missed Jane and I am sure she would have loved to run with the group, but illness has struck her family. We once again had another great run. We talked earlier about how much we have improved in our running on these runs since we started. Gaffney and I were discussing about how building the winter base miles has really helped with getting us at a great starting point for the spring and summer training. I could not agree more as I look at where I was last year at this time and where I am now and it is night and day difference. I am close to my fitness from last summer around Bix 7 time which is where I started to have much of my personal success last year.
Looking at our times this morning you can see we started off at a good pace and dropped our times progressively each mile. I felt a little tired during the run, but once I warmed up I felt good. I think my fatigue has been from the overall training and not the running. This week I started to incorporate the bike workouts again as my knee has felt better and that has added an extra element to my training that I have not had in while. This run did not feel terribly difficult, but I just felt a little tired. A rest day is in store soon as I have trained strong for 11 days.
I was curious as to how our runs have progressed in overall mile pace times so when I came home this morning I looked back at my Garmin data at my Tuesday and Thursday runs and jotted down the overall pace times. We have come a long way which is a sign that we have some amazing people that we are running with. Good company and good runners is a great combo. I have missed some runs and a couple of these were solo, but here is how they break down. All of these runs are at least 6 miles or more. I took just the average mile pace time.
12/20 - 8:58
12/22 - 8:46
12/29 - 7:45(solo run)
1/3 - 8:32 (7.4 mile run)
1/5 - 8:11
1/12 - 8:40
1/17 - 8:39
1/19 - 8:59
1/24 - 8:21
1/31 - 8:03
2/7 - 7:48
2/9 - 8:00
2/14 - 8:16
2/16 - 7:52
You can see that this is not exact science, but I think it is clear that we have made some major improvements starting with close to 9 minute mile pace and pretty much the last few weeks we have really dialed things in knocking off at least a minute to our mile pace which is pretty good considering that we still feel like the run in relatively easy.
In a few weeks I will start to incorporate a track/sprint workout to one of these mornings, but for now I will continue to build up the winter base miles. As time progresses it is going to be important to get some different run workouts in to help me prepare for my races.
Last, it is so great to see so many people trying to improve themselves from the CRAZIES twice a week to the other running groups that meet at the Y to run. It looks like a social gathering in the mornings at the Y.
I hope the nice weather continues. I will take the 30 degree no wind weather all day. It was a great run and I look forward to watching the group improve and achieve their goals individually.
I have one more run this week to get in. I have a long run of 11 miles. I am looking at running this either later in the day Saturday or Sunday morning. Sunday morning is probably more likely as I have a long bike ride to get in Saturday night.
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