Out of my Head!

I had 7 miles scheduled for today and 5 for tomorrow. I had to make a couple of stops on the way home from work, so I decided to swap days to avoid running in the dark. My right ITB has been bothering me the last couple of days, which makes this run even more "out of my head". I probably should not have pushed it like I did, but I was racing against "Darkness". Then "The Clock" entered the race.

My first mile was 7:57. I was surprised, but didn't think much about it. I had 4 more miles to go and knew I would be slowing down. Mile 2 was a little more of a shocker - 8:08 - still a pretty good pace. Mile 3 is usually the mile I slow down in and my times remain around, until pushing some during my last mile. Today, it was 2 seconds faster than Mile 2. That's when it hit me: "I'm hanging around 8:00 miles, and I know I will push during Mile 5 (and hopefully, it will be under 8:00). Could I possibly run 5 miles under an 8:00 pace?" I ran Mile 4 like it was the last mile. I felt like I had slowed down quite a bit during the last half of it, and I may have, but the overall Mile 4 pace was 7:51. Through 4 miles, I was at 8:02. Now, I had to erase those 2 seconds. I ran hard. I was going to do it. At least, try to do it. For some reason, Mile 5 - the same stretch of road I've ran many times for Mile 5 - seemed a lot longer today. Finally, the beep of the watch I had been waiting for - Mile 5 complete!

Last week, I set a new best pace for 5 or more miles at 8:20. This week it was broken - shattered. My total time was 39:43, a pace of 7:57. To non-runners, the 1 minute and 58 seconds difference between last week and this week may only be "2 minutes", but for a runner (or for me anyway), it is a long time.