Progressive Four Miler In The Sun

Headed out this afternoon for an easy four miler in the sun, and what an enjoyable run it was. To be honest, and it may come back to haunt me, I haven’t cut back on my mileage at all and even this week will be an increase on each of the last ten weeks. I’m only a few days away from my first marathon of 2008, so I guess I should really start tapering.

The temperature was a very pleasant 60°F coupled with an annoying 11mph SSE wind. I wonder if we’ll ever get calm conditions again? I started off nice and easy (a 7:40 mile) but increased my speed to the halfway point with a 7:21 mile. At the turnaround, I took advantage of the local soccer fields and ran for about a mile on soft, lush grass which felt really good.

The third mile was a surprisingly quick 6:47, and as I started the fourth and final mile I started to think about the final mile in Sunday’s marathon. My imagination ran away with me (no pun intended) and I couldn’t help but visualize a strong, fast finish which resulted in a new personal record. It’s good to dream and who knows, if everything comes together on the day, I may be able to run the race of my life and break my best time of 2:51:00 set at the Charlotte Marathon in 2006.

For the record, my last mile was a confidence-boosting 6:27. It was great to finish the workout strong and I’m now looking forward to a couple of days of very easy running, with just a couple of miles tomorrow and a couple more on Saturday.

Nothing else to report at the moment. I’m away to study the McMillan Running Calculator to check out predicted marathon finish times based on some of my races earlier this year. Should make good reading for another post…