Last week I got the crazy idea to run a half marathon at an 8-minute mile pace (1:45). Because running a half marathon by itself is not hard enough.
After setting my goal in the height of my post run endorphin rush, I wondered whether I could run even a single 8 minute mile. This is a pretty key component to running a 1:45 half marathon.
I was pretty sure I could. After all, I was running an 8:49 mile towards the end of my run. I have run 8 minute miles in the past. But it's been awhile, you know?
Today I went to the track to see how bad my idea actually was.
After walking around the entire perimeter to find an entrance that wasn't locked, I started with a one mile warm up. I found the start line for the mile and lined myself up. Even though it was just the warm up, anxiety twisted my guts in knots. Each lap felt easy, but brought me closer to the test.
After four laps at a 9:50 mile pace, I stopped to stretch. I don't normally stretch before a run, but I remember doing it in school and it seemed like a good way to delay the test further. After a few stretches I got too anxious and lined up at the mile start again. I shifted my feet around. I think this is the way we learned to start the mile, I decided, leaning forward on one foot, the other lightly resting a step behind me. Not a sprinter's explosive kneeling pose, but a distance runner's cool start.
There wasn't going to be a gun or anyone telling me when to go. I just had to pick a moment and start. So I did.
The Mile
The first quarter mile was the worst. How fast am I even supposed to be going? Is this too fast? Oh my god I don't know if I can even run one lap like this.
All the feelings from middle school and high school track came rushing back. The primary feeling from back then was that a lap around the track was impossibly long. That I would never make it all the way around. That a mile was an absurdly long distance that I was not suited for.
I crossed the first 100 meter mark in 27 seconds, three seconds ahead of the necessary pace of 30 seconds per 100 meters. Okay, this is fine. Just keep doing this.
Then I passed the 200, 300, and finally 400 meters at the same pace. First lap done in 1:50, ten seconds faster than the target pace.
The second lap was fine (1:54), but as I started the third lap I was feeling a bit tired. It would be nice to slow down a bit. Could I even keep up this pace? It was a long lap. I forgot to hit the lap button on my stopwatch.
The fourth lap began and I picked up the pace. At each 100 meter mark I tried to run a bit faster, until the last hundred meters when I sprinted. The finish line was impossibly far away.
I had instructed the youngling to "run through the finish" in her races a few weeks ago, when I noticed all her cohorts slowing down as they neared the end of their race. I caught myself easing off several times in the last hundred meters and had to double down on my sprint. I ran through the finish.
7:18
I ran the mile in 7 minutes and 18 seconds.
I immediately wanted to puke. Just like middle school track when they made me run the mile at a track meet against my will, I stumbled over to the grass and hunched over, hands on my knees, staring at the grass and drinking the air. The nausea passed.
After I stood up, I decided that maybe this crazy idea was possible. Then I remembered how hard it had felt to run that mile. Can I run 13 of those in a row? Really?
I jogged another mile as I considered the question. The discomfort of the 8-minute mile pace (which I hit in laps 1, 2, and 3; lap 4 was much faster) was different than the discomfort of pushing myself to run 26 miles, but it was in some key ways the same. I know this discomfort.
It was the same discomfort I'd felt when I first tried to run 3 miles without stopping. That feeling of pushing against your limits and being uncertain whether you were about to break the limit or yourself, but being pretty certain it was the limit that was going to break first. Over the years, as I worked myself from 3 miles to 6 to 13 and finally to 26 miles, I became very familiar with that feeling. I know how and when to suppress it, and how to harness it.
Can I run a 24-minute 5k? Yes. Maybe not today, but with a few weeks of training I feel confident that I could absolutely run a 24-minute 5k.
But really, can I really? I googled local 5k results, and picked the first one that came up. A 24-minute 5k would put me in 9th place overall, and 1st place for women. Now, that's something that never seemed achievable.
So, naturally, it seems like the next logical step on my way to the 1:45 half marathon.
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