I ran the same 15 mile tempo as last Saturday with Sasha. There was a lot of wind for a good portion of the run, so there were some miles that were a lot slower than the effort. Our total time for 15 miles was 1:26:58. So, 7 seconds slower than last week, however I feel that because of the wind this tempo has an equivalent time of at least 30-60 seconds faster. Anyhow, here are our splits: 5:50, 5:55, 5:52, 5:54, 6:01, 5:54, 5:51, 5:46, 5:44, 5:51, 5:43, 5:39, 5:42, 5:42, 5:34 In comparison to last week, the first 5 miles (in blue) were 17 seconds slower (29:32 in comparison to 29:15 last week). At about 5.5 miles Sasha and I started trading quarters, and this along with a little less wind gave us a little more motivation to run a bit faster. The second 5 miles (in red) were only 3 seconds slower than last week (29:06 in comparison to 29:03). So, after 10 miles we were 20 seconds off of where we were at last week. So, at this point I decided that I wanted to break 1:27:00 which meant that I needed to make up 12 seconds on my time from last week. I took the lead for good, and started picking up the pace slowly. We gained 3 seconds after 1 mile and 6 more after the next. At this point I thought we were in good shape to break 1:27:00, however we hit a nasty patch of wind that slowed us down to a 2:56 for 1/2 mile (1:29 for the second quarter) and I realized that we would need to pick it up a good amount if we were to break 1:27:00, especially considering that the week before we had ran the last mile in 5:34. So, I picked it up and we gained 2 more seconds at the end of that mile even after the wind, and 2 more seconds the mile after that. This put us 7 seconds behind our pace from last week which meant that as long as we ran a 5:35 last mile we would break 1:27:00. However, Sasha was really not feeling well, and he was having trouble maintaining 5:40 pace. So, I did what I could to keep him with me and pick up the pace just a little. We were on pace for a 5:36 through most of the last mile, however we picked it up a little more the last 400 and we finished with a 5:34. Thinking back on it now, I think that this was a really good workout for me. I felt good, and I maintained the pace despite the wind. I do think that it is funny and probably somewhat strange to the majority of you that I compete with myself to meet random time goals that really have no meaning, but it keeps things more interesting for me so I do it. I also think that this workout was good, because I finished my run yesterday only 12 hours before running 20 miles today. So, all in all I am pleased with how things went.
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