Sub-9??

I did a somewhat impromptu 5k saturday morning to satisfy the first 1/2 of my shave-your-5k challenge over at Half-fast. The event was the rescheduled UW-running club V-Day 5k.

The concept of the challenge is to improve your 5-k time over the next 8-months or so, i.e. slow time now, fast time later. Sandbagging is apparently not my forte, cause I ran faster than I've ever run before.

Race morning was cold, maybe 10 degrees F, but the sun was out and there wasn't much wind. Maybe 150 runners so not much congestion at the start. Except for maybe 1/4-mile in the middle, the course was also clear of ice and snow. This is how it shook out.

First 1/2 mile: 9:30 / mile pace
there to 2-mile mark: 9:17 / mile pace
there to end: 8:20 mile / pace

Total race time: 27:49 - 8:58 / mile pace

The first time I broke 11:00 per mile was 2/1. I figured it was a fluke, error in measuring the distance or something. It took me 3 weeks to break 11 again. On 3/1 at the Bock Run I broke 10 per mile for the first time. I havn't come close to doing it again, until of course yesterday.

Now the bar is set at sub-9. I don't know how much faster I can go. Sub-8 seems crazy, that's almost fast.