New Mile and 800M PR Today

I'm currently in taper mode for Uwharrie right now so I'm not putting a lot of mileage on this week or next, but the little bit of mileage I am getting in I want to be quality.  So today, I decided since all the trails were covered in fresh snow, I would go for a little run on the indoor track here on campus.  The plan was just to run a lot of slow 9 min pace laps around the track with a few 400m spurts at 10k pace just to get the legs used to some turnover.  But I also had a mission for today's run.  Run a mile under 6 minutes, my previous timed mile PR (I may have run a faster mile before, but it definitely wasn't timed and it was probably on a downhill section of road or trail). I know what your thinking, "a mile under 6 min is easy".  It may be for someone that is training for that distance, but not for a guy that has been running long distance ever since he started running and has never even really tried to run a fast mile.

The plan was to run the first 800M in 3:00 flat and then run the second half in 2:55.  I was taking it relatively easy at first and when I got to the halfway point, I looked down at my watch and saw 3:08! My first thought was, "there is no way I'm going to get under 6 minutes now", but I just started busting it out anyway.  I was constantly looking at my watch just hoping I would make up the time some how.  With just under 200m left, I looked down and had 30 seconds to get to the finish.  I threw it into another gear I didn't even knew I had and crossed the line in 5:58! I managed to beat both my mile PR and 800m PR by 2 seconds (previous 800m - 2:52).

After today's workout, I think I have a new appreciation for the track and will probably start incorporating it into the training schedule at least bi-monthly.  I really think this is about as much as I'll want to do, I just love the trails too much to sacrifice more time to running around in circles for an hour.  As well, I'm going to set a mile goal this year for a 5:40, maybe even a 5:30 if the track workouts start showing some really solid gains.  Looking forward to the Sultan 50k+ this weekend, although I'm only running half(16.5m).  I'll have a report for you on that next time.