One New Year's Resolution Achieved - A New 1 Mile PR

Today was Day 33 of my Running Streak.  I had planned on trying to do 6-8 miles with a goal of 12 total over the weekend.  But my husband and I had family coming to visit and stay with us for the weekend and the cleaning up suddenly took over my Saturday morning.  At 11:30 am, I realized I had to get out the door or the streak would die.  We figured I only had time for 3-4 miles before the guests arrived.

This is my first time running through a fibromyalgia flare-up.  A flare-up occurs every 2-3 months for me and is most easily characterized as pain, tension, and stiffness through most of the muscles of my body coupled with sleep problems (I don't sleep well, not restorative sleep for sure).  Unfortunately, as a runner it means it's not always easy to tell what's tired and sore muscles from running or overtraining versus a flare-up.  One way to tell is when you hurt in places that could not have anything to do with running. 

I walked out the door, stretched, and as I began my walk warm-up before I start running, I absentmindedly was massaging my wrist.  It hurt, it really hurt.  An obvious sign that what I've been experiencing the last couple days is a flare-up.  I started running and I think I was feeling mad, because I went out at a 10:30 pace and it just didn't feel as bad as it normally would - I was feeling driven.  So then I thought, "Well, if I don't have time for distance, I can work on some speed," thinking I could work on feeling more comfortable at my current 5K PR of 32:00.  So I started to speed it up.  By 4/10 of a mile in, I was really going faster and on target for a 9:30 pace. 

One of my New Year's Resolutions was to break my 1 mile PR of 9:56 and achieve a 9:30 PR by June 30, 2010 and a 9:00 PR by the end of 2010.  So as I found my pace approaching that 9:30 goal, I decided to go for it.  It was 40 degrees with some wind, but I was feeling strong and I was angry, and I used that as fuel.  By 9/10 in, I realized I had sped up so much that I was close to my end of year goal, and I pushed hard but was running out of gas in the tank. 

I finished the mile with a 9:04! Not only did I break my PR of 9:56 and hit my goal of 9:30, I had shattered it!  I don't know where that speed came from.  Note that I'm not a person who cares if my PRs come from official race results or a training run where the info is captured on the Garmin - they all matter the same to me.

I walked a quarter mile and then jogged an 11:30 pace for a quarter mile and then walked the remaining 0.1 mile home.  I walked in the door with 1.6 miles at an 11:18 pace, usually a pretty good pace for me if I'd run the whole thing. :-)

So in feeling my worst, I somehow came up with my best.  And that makes for a pretty good day.  Happy Running All!