Big Time

Back in September I was mulling over the idea of registering for the Cap city 1/2 marathon in May.  It's pretty expensive (overpriced in my opinion) but it's cheaper than traveling to a big race (Oh" Disney, I miss you!).  Still, it seemed like a big chunk of change just to run around town.  I chatted it over with The Pilot and he gave me the thumbs up to spend the money and register...with one condition.  I had to train for a "big time" PR.  Those were his exact words.  I naturally had to ask what he meant by "big time" and he simply replied BIG TIME!  Uhhh.... What if I get injured the day before?  What if it's 90 degrees on race day (we all know I hate heat!)?  He didn't care as long as I trained for a big time PR.  If we were going to drop big money for me to run around town, it wasn't going to be just for fun.  I would have to earn it!  Challenge accepted.  I registered right then and there.

I didn't officially start training until the first of the year but it's been full on big time ever since!  A huge factor in keeping my mileage up when the weather was awful was the 2,015 in 2015 challenge.  I couldn't let my teammates down by not getting my miles in.  So between the weather and The Pilot's schedule, I spent A LOT of miles on the treadmill after Megatron was asleep.  The trouble with my treadmill was I'm fairly certain it's not very accurate.  The miles and my times just didn't seem right.  I randomly got outside but it was often pushing the run stroller so again, I wasn't getting a very accurate idea of what my pace was looking like.  

Finally the weather started to get a little better and I've had several outdoor runs.  There was even an 8 miler pushing the stroller.  That's nearly 50 pounds of stroller and toddler!  I felt pretty badass...and exhausted.  I was darn near crawling at the end.  But had to go home and chase after said toddler for the rest of the day.  My pace wasn't awful considering how hard it was but it wasn't anywhere near PR pace.  I do think that was good mental training.  Megatron whined for the last 2 miles when I really could have used a pep talk instead.  But with each outdoor run, I started to realize I was pretty consistently averaging just over or right at PR pace.  I also had a couple runs where I realized I still had a little gas in the tank when I finished....meaning I needed to step up my game and push harder.

And I think I did that especially on my last 2 long runs.  I did 8.5 miles last weekend right at my PR pace and then yesterday, my 10 miler average pace was 15 seconds faster than my current PR pace.  I was super excited to see that one!  What was incredibly helpful in making that happen was running the first 6 miles with 2 ladies who run faster than me.  They said I was setting the pace but in reality, I was just hanging on with them.  But that's what I needed to do, because even though my body was trying to tell me to slow down, my brain decided to override and hang on!  I even had a 4 miler recently where my average pace was 11:59!  An 11!!!  For all of those runs, I left it all out there.  I know I have more in me, I just have trouble tapping that extra speed on my own.  I somehow am able to keep up with people for longer than I realize.   I'm starting to think I might line up with a pace team at Cap City and hang on for as long as I can.  Right now I'm thinking a 2:45 half is pretty reasonable.  That would be a 4 minute PR.  Hopefully that's "big time" enough! :)