Day 40 - Thursday 22nd July: Stanford - 5 laps

Run: 5.33 miles
Time: 41 minutes 08 seconds



A "brisk" 5 miles, getting faster on each lap. Splits of:
8m08s - 7m45s - 7m41s - 7m37s - 7m27s

I was planning to run my regular Milton 5 mile route, and go for it in 40 minutes today, but didn't feel up to the challenge at lunchtime. I thought perhaps I'd visit the Park Gym after work and try out a fast treadmill run (they've been taken over by SOLL, so I may enquire about upgrading my existing membership). In the end though I decided I needed to run a fast outdoor run.

I planned to set off at a good pace, clockwise round the village, and then speed up along the straight alongside the A417, trying to get faster on the uphill section, and then back to a steady-to-brisk pace for the other two thirds of the lap. Lap one felt so good, when I clocked up an 8:08 mile, that I decided to up the ante, and run a negative/negative/negative/negative/negative split - trying to run each lap faster than the last - meaning I'd also run the 5 miles in under 40 minutes.

It was a tough challenge, but I was more than up to it. And I've smashed my best time for this run by nearly 3 minutes from... 1 year ago today - Weds 22nd July 2009! Maybe my subconscious runner is trying to hold onto lost youth before the turn of the day, and another candle is added to the cake of my life?