I'm In The Magic Kingdom!

Saturday -- time for my weekly "test run" -- and what would the day hold, after my exciting, personal best 5 mile run last week? Could I do it again?

It was a tough run today, no telling why. The first mile was normal, second mile was good, third mile was harder than it should have been. Luckily starting at 4 miles, my gym buddy showed up and worked hard to distract me from the boredom of the treadmill.

And she did a good job -- I ran 5.5 miles instead of 5.25! But boy was it tough.

I thought at mile 2 about stopping momentarily for water, like we'll do in the race. But I've been drinking water without stopping on all my other Saturday test runs on the treadmill, so I decided I really needed to keep going and gut it out.

So I did. And there was no question that I was going to finish the 5.25, no matter how hard it was. I was breathing fine, no muscle cramps, so there was no real excuse for stopping. And before I knew it, I moved the towel off the display and I had made it to 5.5, averaging a 14 min mile pace!!

And if you look at the race map, that means I made it into the Magic Kingdom backstage entrance!! Woo hoo!!!

(If you are not testing yourself weekly -- give it a try by doing a timed walk/run. I started in January by running 1 mile at 4.0 speed (15 min mile pace), and then added a quarter mile each week. Now I'm up to 5.5 miles on pace. It's comforting to know where I stand so far!)