Well, I ran the Get In Gear 10k last Saturday, in the heavy wind, light snow, and downright comfortable temps (around 35? Gotta love April in Minnesota!). My time was 55:23.

I’m not necessarily “happy” with my time, but I was very happy with my pacing: Every mile I ran, I ran just a little bit faster, starting around a 9.5-minute mile and finishing probably around 8. Considering that I approached the race as merely a training run for a slightly longer race I’m doing in June, my average split wasn’t too bad. I just wanted to make sure I didn’t come out of the gates too fast. 6.2 miles is no 3.1 mile race, like the several I did last summer!

So, since my 12k training plan wanted me to run 9 miles rather than 6, I cut a deal with my joints, and went to a spin class, the day after the race.

I am, however, exceedingly happy with how my 5-mile tempo run went, on Wednesday this week. I was aiming for 8:30 split, and hit about 8:30 on the first mile… then same on mile 2, then about 7:45 for each of the last three miles. Yay. The nice weather helped, I’m sure.