What a weird tempo run yesterday! I'm back to running my tempos in the Christine Luff way. That is (for yesterday), 1 mile at 8:45 min/mile, 2.5 at 7:16, 1 mile at 8:45. The first mile was perfect, though I felt slightly sluggish. The second mile was 7:13: close to perfect, just 3 seconds faster than required, but a difference that small doesn't warrant any change in pace. When I went on, I was very surprised to see that my second fast mile was quite a bit faster than I thought. I slowed down a bit, but I still did that mile in 7:07. That is way too fast! I was a bit tired by then, but still perfectly OK, I was still breathing at my usual 2 steps in, 2 steps out. I thought I was slowing down a bit, especially, because it felt I didn't work too hard. I tried to keep my pace, and it was OK until the last 200 meters, when suddenly I had a bad side stitch, my breathing collapsed, and I had hard time keeping my pace on that 200 meters. Then I pushed the "split" button on my watch, and I was utterly surprised to see that I did that last half mile in 3:25! I was the fastest on that stretch!

The sudden tiredness took effect on the last slow mile, and I only got home in 8:57. It is still fine for an uphill mile.

It is amazing that I did the middle fast stretch in 17:45, which is a pace of 7:06 min/mile. That used to be my PR pace on 5K! It felt almost comfortable until the last 200 meters. All this on a Thursday night, after a long, hard workday, with two days of hard and relatively hard running previously.

I think I'm getting into terrific shape. I might have a shot to run close to 20 minutes on August 15 (that would be a dream). If only I could shed that extra 5-10 pounds of fat that I have on me.

Also, I've become to to believe that one day, I will be able to BQ (that is, qualify for the Boston Marathon). When I started to run, I just wanted to finish a marathon. Of course, I needed a specific time goal, because just walking much of the course, or being extremely slow is not hard at all, so it is not a challenge. That was when I decided on 4 hours. BQ for me would be 3:10 for next April, which is still hopeless; after that a time of 3:15 would qualify me for April 2011 (because I'll be 35 in April 2011). That may not be impossible next fall or later.

Nowadays every wuss runs a marathon. They crawl through it in 6 hours and they call themselves marathon runners! This is very annoying and it takes away from the weight of these words : "I ran a marathon". But to qualify for Boston? That still means to be part of a VERY select group.