A PR for my birthday! :)

I ran a pretty badly-paced race, but I still managed to come away with a PR! I ran a 29:37 for 4 miles, a 31-second PR and a 1:35 improvement over a year ago. I was 14th female out of 275 and 3rd in my age group out of 48. Pretty nifty! I also got my prize for finishing top three in my age group at the last race: a pint glass. Mmmmyes.

Things are still definitely on the upswing, and I hope I can keep it going for a while longer. I don't expect to race again until the Anthem 5K on March 1, but I wouldn't say no to racing in February if the opportunity presented itself. I am really excited about the Triple Crown this year because like this race, they should offer a useful gauge for my improvement. Last spring is when I ran my PR marathon, so by comparing last year's races with this year's, hopefully I can know what I'm capable of in this spring's marathon.

I know I haven't updated my miles since week 9, so I'll give a quick recap:

Week 10: 40.3 miles (9:07/mile)
Week 11: 40.8 miles (9:05/mile)
Week 12: 32.4 miles (8:54/mile)
Week 13: 43.4 miles (9:02/mile)
Week 14: 45.4 miles (8:51/mile)

Here's what's up for my 15th and last week of winter base training:

Week 15

Sunday, January 20: 10 miles long
Monday, January 21: 7 miles GA (weights)
Tuesday, January 22: off
Wednesday, January 23: 8 miles easy w/ 10 min tempo (weights)
Thursday, January 24: 5 miles w/ fartlek workout
Friday, January 25: off (weights)
Saturday, January 26: 5 miles GA

Target: 35

Next week I start once again on Pfitzinger's 18/55 marathon training schedule. It will be slightly modified since I'm also running with the Indy Mini training group and integrating their schedule, but I will try to stick to it as best I can. This is by FAR the best base I've had going into a training schedule, so I hope I can translate that into a sub-4 come May 31!!