Moving Forward and Adding Miles

Today I ran ten miles around Bay Farm Island in Alameda. Yesterday I was pleased with my effort and the fact that I allowed myself to run at a recovery pace. Today I wanted to run at an easy pace, which requires a little push to keep the pace above the recovery pace I ran yesterday. I was aiming for a pace between 7:55 to 8:04 mile/minute. I ended up with an overall pace of 7:58 mile/minute. I was right at 8:00 minute pace until the last mile, which I ran a bit faster, including a quarter mile that I ran at below 7:00 minute/mile pace. I wanted to push the pace to see how my body would react, specifically the muscle that I strained in my lower abdomen. It felt good during the run. I can sometimes feel a tightness, but it was no worse when running faster than it normally is. At this point the only lingering pain from the injury is at the beginning of each run, and it does take longer to warmup. Hopefully, there won't be any residual soreness tomorrow from running faster today.

If I'm feeling good tomorrow, I'll try to work in a few faster miles in each of my runs (except recovery runs) over the next couple of months. Hopefully, when I start marathon specific training (in early November if memory serves me correctly), I'll be at the point where I feel comfortable running a 7:00 minute/mile pace.