Maybe the training is finally paying off!

After some five years of running, hundreds of miles and two mountain marathons, maybe the training is starting to have an effect!


Over the last few years my pace has always hovered somewhere between 10:00 and 9:45 minutes per mile. I had a quiet period at the start of the year while I let a calf injury subside, but have been running well for the last few weeks. When I look at the figures, it seems that on the shorter runs I am running consistently below 9:30 , and often below 9:00. Today's run was 4.6 miles in 40 mins, an average of 8:44.

I'm not sure what has caused the change.  I am not pushing myself harder. I find that difficult anyway, except for short distances, as as soon as my mind drifts off to other things (and that's why I enjoy running, letting my mind drift) I just ease back to my natural pace.  But that natural speed seems to have drifted down to somewhere around 9:00, at least over shorter distances.

At longer distances I am still hitting around 9:45, suggesting that the high speed at the starts does sap my longer term energy, so I'll have to keep an eye on that.  And it was running too fast that buggered my achilles last year, so I'll be careful with that too.

But at the moment doing sub 9 minute runs feels good!