I am SO jazzed about my run today! We got a rather late start for a variety of reasons, but hubby and I wanted to bump the distance of our long run to 7 miles. We're signed up to do a 12K race next weekend (just under 7 1/2 miles), and we were a little nervous about it--the longest we've run is 6 to 6 1/2 miles, so we knew that we needed to get in a good long run today to be ready for that race as well as to continue training for our half marathons this summer.

I was determined to not let hubby's pace dictate mine today; I had in mind trying to keep my pace to a 13-13 1/2 minute mile pace in hopes that I would be able to run the whole distance. Too often I start out too fast and I end up having to do a run/walk on the way back. Not today; I wanted to run as much as I could of the distance, although I am not opposed to walking a bit when needed.

The trail we run has several small roads that cross it, but generally there is little to no traffic to stop us with the exception of one road with a stoplight. Hubby was a little ahead of me, as usual, when we got to that light, and he made it across just as the light turned yellow; I opted to be safe and stopped for the light. We both had to stop and wait briefly on the way back; other than that, hubby ran the whole 7 miles. I took two 30-second walk breaks because my heart rate was getting a little too high, but otherwise I ran the whole distance! For once hubby wasn't leaving me in his dust; even with my walk breaks, I caught back up to him and we ran close to one another the whole distance.

Here are the splits:
Mile 1 - 13:04.51
Mile 2 - 12:38.48
Mile 3 - 13:01.43
Mile 4 - 12:58.30
Mile 5 - 13:58.86
Mile 6 - 14:02.49
Mile 7 - 13:54.19

Total time: 1:33:42.96
Average pace: 13:22 minutes/mile

I am not fast by any stretch of the imagination, but I'm thrilled with that pace and time, especially since I was able to run basically the entire distance and kept my pace fairly steady throughout. This is my longest run to date, and I have more confidence that I'll be able to handle not only the 12K next weekend but the half marathons in June and July. I've now run more than half of a half marathon (is that a quarter marathon??), and I can still walk afterward. (Ask me tomorrow if I can still say that, LOL!)

A year ago I couldn't run more than about 5-10 minutes at a time; today I ran over an hour and a half. What a difference a year can make!