Surprised

I ran a new PR, 1:48:10, at the Inside-Out Half Marathon this past Sunday. That's over three minutes faster than my old PR, which I ran this past November on a much flatter course. And it's over eight minutes faster than the last time I ran the same course.

And I placed second in my age group.

I was not expecting to do this well, especially as I was running without my tunes.

Here are my splits (the wide variation shows just how hilly the course was):
8'01"
7'56"
8'10"
8'46"
8'32"
8'56"
8'04"
7'47"
8'11"
7'52"
7'36"
8'18"
(GPS lost signal on the 1.1 miles)

Without a doubt the cross-training and the pool plyometrics have helped increase my overall strength. It was a very cool and damp day, and I always run better in those conditions. But because it was such a challenging course, I expected in the best case to meet my old PR, 1:51:52, not beat it.

So this week all runs are easy runs. And my kids and I are going to sign up for a 5K at the end of the month. I am going to have to think hard about what goal time to set.