Best Long Run Ever: 2ND WEEK IN A ROW!

I've been nailing my long runs lately! I posted last week that I had a long run with 6 "pace miles" in the middle at 6:07 pace (36:43 for those 6 miles), which I think is my best version EVER of that workout.

I heartily outdid that yesterday!

Like last week, I started my "pace miles" faster after a 2.5 mile warm-up. Instead of starting with half-mile splits around 3:15 or 3:20, I started with back-to-back 3:07s yesterday. And that was my slowest mile BY FAR! My faster splits in the middle of my run looked like this:

Pace miles (half-mile splits):

3:07, 3:07, 3:02, 3:03, 3:03, 3:03, 2:59, 2:56, 3:03, 2:59, 2:55, 2:53

= 36:17 (6:02.83/mile!!)

18:29 first half, 17:48 second half!

5 out of my last 6 half-mile splits were sub-3:00! And I posted a 6:03 pace for those 6 faster miles! I have NEVER seen numbers like that! Normally, this workout has splits that are just slower than 10 mile race pace (like around 6:20/mile), but the last 2 weeks they've been FASTER than race pace! In fact, I've only ran ONE 10 mile (out of 13?) at a faster pace than the middle 6 miles of this workout.

My pace chart and heart rate show the "pace miles" pretty clearly.

I started thinking during this run that I should look back to some old workouts from Coach Jen from 14 years ago (YIKES) when she coached me to my only sub-60 TC 10 Mile. I'm NOT in sub-60 shape (and never will be again), but I could benefit from some of her workouts to help get my 10 mile time down. Between a summer full of regular speed work and now some great long runs, I might have a shot at a real decent 10 mile time in 4.5 weeks!