A Pace Paradigm Shift

You know what's scary? Getting faster.

Every season, I re-evaluate myself with a 3K Indicator run. I opted out this season because I'd recently done a hard 5K that I feel is pretty representative of my abilities, and used that to get my results. 

...and they were really intimidating.

3:41 marathon?
9:01 easy pace?
closing in on an 8:00/mi half marathon?
HAHAHAHAHAHA.
Are you freaking kidding me?

...except a 7:30/mi 5K used to be that ridiculous too. 

...except I just ran a 4mi without too much push at an 8:28/mi.

...MY ENTIRE WORLD OF PACE REFERENCE IS IMPLODING ON ME!!!

THIS IS HOW I FEEL.

I'm going through a bit of a paradigm shift (did you know that word isn't pronounced "pair-rih-dim", but, rather, "pair-a-dime"? yeah, erm, me too...) when it comes to pace these days. Before pregnancy, before I was trying to get faster, I had pretty much one speed: whatever I felt like running. After I became a consistent runner, this was usually in the mid-9s.

Anyways, upon seeing these results and thinking about how they applied to marathon training, I had a bit of a freakout and asked my coach (EEEE, I HAVE A COACH!) for help. She came back and asked what I was generally running races, tempo, and easy mileage at, and basically told me, "congrats, you're gonna have to get used to being faster than you think", and reminded me that I should still run by feel over time. 

Tempo runs should be comfortably uncomfortable.

Races should be all-out. Don't be afraid to find your limit the hard way (going out too fast) BEFORE your goal race.

Easy mileage should be whatever feels easy that day.

It's really awesome to see myself getting faster, but my mind has to catch up with the idea, too. Physically, I'm totally there. Mentally, I'm not. 

I'm capable of a 3:45 marathon.  I know, 100%, though, that I don't want to work for it.

I'm capable of a sub-4:00 marathon.

Do I want to work for it?  I still don't know...

Reasons I want to:

• it's a good benchmark- one that the rest of #10KTuesday is going for and capable of
• I think being a ~4 hour marathoner fits how I see myself
• it's approximately the same pace as my current half PR of 1:59:02, which was set pre-baby
• Jerry's PR is 3:59:something, and it'd be freaking boss to own the family marathon PR for a little while
• to make people (including myself) proud
• because it'd be sweet to PR my marathon by over an hour

Reasons I don't want to:

• scared of failure
• have to focus on pace during training
• pressure during the race to hit splits
• having to work for it
• feel like it's "easy" for the rest of the #10KTuesday crew even though I've already proven that I'm, more-or-less, around the same level 
• isn't just running the miles enough? if I have a time goal, then I have to have a pace goal for every run too... and that sounds hard (then again, by signing up as a run leader, I've already committed to having a pace goal for every run)

Blergh. Guess I'll just see what happens on this weekend's first continuous LSD and go from there... It'll be my first half marathon since pregnancy... since last August, actually.