Running for Freedom

I ran and completed the 7th Annual Denton Parks & Rec Liberty 5K this morning. Jarrod wasn't feeling well so he had to bail out and Jonathan & Alexis decided to do the 1 mile walk option, but it was a fun and rewarding race all the same. No rain, but it was a little humid and halfway through the run, I was dripping in sweat.

Unfortunately, I didn't come anywhere close to my goal of running 8 minute miles (and definitely a far cry from the sub-7 minute miles of my college days), but I crossed the finish line at 27:55 or right at 9 minutes per mile. This is almost 2 minutes per mile faster than the TWU tri from 3 days ago and I didn't have to stop to walk at all so that was certainly good news.

But I don't really know exactly how to improve my speed (except obviously to train more and train harder). I hit the 1-mile checkpoint at about 9:34 so my pace started off slow (and that was planned - I didn't want to burn out right away), and I obviously sped it up for the final two miles (I think I hit the 2-mile point at 17:[forty-something] or just over 8 minutes for the second mile). But except for a late sprint a few hundred yards from the finish line, I couldn't find any more speed in that final mile.

I even tried to do some analysis during the race on why my pace was slow, but nothing jumped out as the culprit: Legs? - tired, but still willing; Heart? - seems like an aerobic rate, not pounding; Lungs? - also not too bad. I just didn't have any more "gas" to give.

So I guess all comes back to the original point: It's not one single thing that needs "fixing" - if I want to improve my run speed, I will just have to train more and train harder in this area.