Real David H.

The streak is finally over. Today’s 10.2-mile run brought an end to my 8-plus month streak of not having a double digit run. And after setting a goal the other day of beating a 9-minute pace for this run, I went out an destroyed it.

With cloudy skies and temperatures in the mid-60s, I went out with an 8:48 mile and never looked back. In fact, I got stronger in the second half. My mile splits after mile 1 were: 8:52, 8:44, 8:42, 8:49, 8:45, 8:32, 8:35, 8:26 and 8:10.

With having the advantage of no hills today in Ohio, I wanted to push myself a bit at the end to see what I had in me. I was actually shooting for a sub 8-minute mile in the final mile, but couldn’t quite hold it together in the final quarter mile.

I felt great out there today; it’s nice to be able to get this kind of flat run in this early in Baltimore Marathon training to set the tone for future long runs.

I’m realizing more and more how I need to set goals for not only my races, but my runs as well. This is the first time in a while that I’ve set a specific goal for a long run — it kept me intensely focused today.

I might not set a goal for every long run, but I certainly will continue to have a different frame of mind. If it worked so well this time, it can only get better.