Double-Digits

Keen observers of this blog will note that there have been several posts of late in which I lament the fact that I can manage to run up to ten miles, but not much more than that. Things went a little better Saturday when I managed 12 decent miles with my friends. Today, just two days later, I ran another 12 miles, and they were pretty good as well. So maybe I'm pushing that boundary out a little. Just a little. For the rest of this week, I hope to run one or two more double-digit runs, although I won't expect them to be more than 12; maybe next week for that.

Double-digits come into play another way for me, however. Here's we're talking ten-minute pace. The vast majority of my running these days is well north of that. I have to really buckle down and concentrate to run faster, especially for any length of time. Nowadays, I call it a tempo run if I can manage to run three or more consecutive miles under ten. It doesn't happen real often. And I probably shouldn't push the pace so much on my longish runs of ten or more miles.

But I did today. I didn't even intend for it to happen; I only wanted 12 decent miles. But since I started so slow, I began trying to run each mile faster than the previous one, and I somehow succeeded. But this meant that by the time I got to mile 9, there was no place to go but sub-10 (in order to keep each mile faster than the one before). I got back to the car just as my watch said 12 miles, and just as it said that the final mile, at 9:15, was indeed my best.

The average pace for today's run wasn't outstanding, but all's swell that ends swell.