run a mile in under 11 minutes

10:56 and 10:46 (!!!) tonight! I’m adjusting to barefoot running shoes so I can’t do as much distance as usual, and I took the opportunity to get some good times in. Done!

Best was only 11:15 today =/ Maybe I was mistaken the other day? I do think I just felt more tired today. But I want an official sub-11 time before I check this off.

Did this by accident yesterday! No idea how, since I haven’t run in like a month, although I have been playing hockey. I ran on the indoor track for the first time (I really like it!) and I guess the pressure of everyone in the entire gym being able to see gave me a little speed boost. I didn’t pay too much attention, but I’m pretty sure my first mile was sub-11, and even my final mile of the night was only 11:30! I’m going to leave this up until next week when I will actually pay attention to the clock before I get several miles in so I can get an exact time.

Did some timed miles the other night and uh… it was not good. Once again, I knew that when I started trying to increase my distance I was sacrificing speed, but I didn’t think it would be that bad. So now I am going to shift gears and attempt to get my time down before I get back to distance training.

I’m running an 8k tonight and I’ve been freaking out about being able to cover the distance, so I’ve totally ignored any sort of speed training lately. But next week I’d really like to run a timed mile, since it’s been a very long time. I need to either break onto the HS track or find somewhere else I can run that I trust the distance measurements to be exact.

Ugh, I haven’t run a timed mile in forever, partly because I don’t have access to a track. I can tell that my general pace is slowing, though, as I go for longer and longer runs.
I have this problem now that rugby’s over – we always did conditioning (sprinting and such) at practice, so the two days a week outside of practice when I ran I only went for relaxing long runs. When I’m at home, I only run slightly more – 3 days a week – and they’re all still slow, long runs, because that’s what I like (and also it’s hard to do speed training without being on a track). I need to get over whatever mental block I have about running two days in a row – obviously I was doing it when I had rugby 4 days a week plus my own running, but without an external motivator that seems to be difficult.

I ran a race today that was about 3.7 miles long in 41:48, which means that I ran an average of 11:18 per mile, slightly faster than when I timed myself in November. I’m sure that not all of the miles were evenly paced, though!
If the snow ever melts I plan on moving back outside for my runs, and then I can use the track to mix it up with sprints. I think it will take me a while to work up to this, but I’m hoping to get down to 11 minutes by the end of the semester.

Well, I finally ran a timed mile on Tuesday, in 11:22. I’m fairly pleased with it. I’ve never tried to run one for speed so I’ve never finished a mile in less than 12 minutes.
I also timed how fast I run during my long runs, which came out to around 13:14 for a mile. It’s a lot slower than I thought it was. I figured I’d be dropping below 5 mph, especially towards the end, but I was thinking more along the lines of 12:30 miles, not 13+ =/
I need to come up with a new running schedule to mix in speed training rather than just long runs. It’s just that 3+ mile jogs are so relaxing that I’m never inclined to pick up the pace for a shorter run. I’d like to get in under 11 minutes when we do timed miles again at the start of the spring [rugby] season, which is in February.