After a pretty good-mileage week, with 34 miles of running and a 15-mile bike ride for good measure, this is going to be a very light week. I ran 14 miles on Friday; we rode 15 yesterday, and I ran a very hilly 10 today. This week, I'll be taking Monday and Tuesday off from running, and running only a single mile on Wednesday.
However, that mile will likely be the fastest mile I run all year. That's the plan, anyway. Wednesday evening is the Miller's Mutual Harrisburg Mile, which this year is part of the Michelob Race to the Ultra series, which means we're going to get athletes' favorite watered-down low-cal beer at the beer tent.
Last year I ran a 6:44. This year, my goal was to run finish in 6:00 or under. However, I'm not really sure how feasible that is. Not only did I not do any speed training (I'm sorry, I just hate it.), but I realized a 6 minute mile means that I would be running 10mph. I usually keep my Garmin set to mph rather than minutes per mile, and my speed is usually between 5.5 and 6.5, occasionally getting up into the low 7s or dropping into the 4s when I climb a hill.
6:44 is 8.9 mph, which is honestly faster than I thought it would be before I looked it up on this handy mph to minutes per mile chart. On Wednesday, I want to see if I can crank it up a little more than 1 mph faster and shave 44 seconds off my time, and I'm hoping fresh legs will help.
If I don't make it in under 6 minutes, I can't be too disappointed. After all, I didn't train at all. My backup goal is to get a new PR for the mile. Next year, I'd like to focus more on beating my 5K and mile PRs, but I'm sure I'll still dislike track work just much next year. I do have little bit of hope, though: hills. "Hills are speedwork in disguise", says Frank Shorter, the 1972 Olympic gold medalist who helped popularize distance running in the U.S. I've run up a ****load of hills this summer. Wednesday night can't come soon enough.
If you're thinking of running the Harrisburg Mile but haven't signed up yet, you can register online until noon tomorrow (Monday, 7/18). After that, though, you can still register in person. It's a fun race. It's hot, but at least it's over quickly and there's beer at the end.
As for low-mileage week, I'll probably run on Thursday and Saturday, taking it a little easy because of soreness (Thursday) and heat (Saturday) -- after a few gorgeous running/biking days, it sounds like summer will return with a vengeance this week.
