8 Miles??? FUGGEDABOUT IT.

Another training week in the books and, coming with it, a motivating streak remains unbroken. I've been running (pun intended) on a bit of a hot-streak here with training going better than expected leading up to the National Half Marathon. My last 8 runs have all come in just under my 8:00 min/mile goal pace and it's feeling great. Wohoo!!

Yesterday's 8-miler was a bit weird, but finished off as one of my best runs ever. You see, it had snowed a ton the night before making an outdoor run at-pace nearly impossible b/c not only were there no cleared trails or sidewalks, but the roads were barely drivable as well. Instead, I opted to do the run indoors on a treadmill. This would be the longest treadmill run I've ever done, the previous record being 6 miles about two years ago this same time of year. After I got going on the treadmill about 0.8 miles in the run, the f-ing fire alarm went off at the YMCA and we all had to exit the building and stand in the cold for 15 minutes. Nice, huh? Eventually, the fire department let us all back in and I was able to hop back on the treadmill. 7.02 additional miles later, and I had myself a nice 7:55 min/mile pace, with room to spare... physically speaking, of course.

This bodes very well for the future, but then again perhaps it is right where I should be at this stage in my training. Of course, if I were averaging 8:05 or 8:10 min/mile pacing I might be in the early stages of crumbling mentally. Never-the-less, I am where I am and I'm cautiously optimistic about race-day. At this point, my largest remaining concern is that my training program has me maxing out at a 10-mile run the week before the race, leaving a full 5K left to achieve on race-day. Given how I felt after this last long-run, I'm not too worried. I can mentally break the run up into (assuming I'm on or below pace) a 2-mile "just hang on to 8:00min/mile" and then a 1.1-mile balls-out victory lap approach. Easier said than done, right? I've got a few weeks left in my training before I can fully address this issue.