Milestone.

Well... hit a couple milestones this week, the most important being that I broke 200 miles running over the past month and change.  It doesn't seem like I'm running that far during training, but it's surprising and hard to stomach, looking back and seeing what I've actually done!

The other milestone was that I ran my 3 mile in a time of 18:02 and finally got my 5k time under 19 minutes.  Again... it's hard to believe that when I started a little over a month ago I was running 3 miles in 23 minutes and that I've already dropped 5 minutes off in this short of time.  Although it was a personal best by well over a minute, I wasn't happy since my goal was to get in the 17 minute range.  To miss by 3 seconds... gah.  Torture.

Today started the lead-up week to the first road race of the season:  the LiveStrong 5k in Philly.  The plan for the next few days was to run an easy 10 miles today with a 3 mile cool down, speed workout tomorrow, and then another 10 miles on Wednesday.  Rest Thursday, Friday, do an easy mile or two Saturday to loosen up, and then race like a bat out of hell on Sunday.  I would love to drop my 5k time to around 18 minutes... and if I can finally break into that 17 minute zone, I'll be one happy guy.

So I ran an easy 10.2 miles today.  Finished in 1:20:13 which is a little over my personal best, but still averaging 7:51 a mile.  I wasn't winded at the end at all... and I think the Baltimore Marathon shouldn't be too hard to conquer.  Especially my route here has more hills than in Baltimore.

Did a 3 mile "cool-down" and realized with about a half mile to go that my 22 minute pace probably wasn't the "cool-down" i needed.  I ran a faster mile pace than I did in my 10 miler.  Instead of feeling better after that run, I actually started to hurt for the first time.  After 13.2 miles, i was dead.  I can't wait to have aid stations with water and food during the actual marathon.  With that, i know it will be easy.

Looking forward to a personal best this weekend.