Speed Work - 7 x 1 mile repeats

We did speed work tonight at Gibbon's Park in London. This time, the legendary John Ferguson had us do up to 7 repeats of 1 mile at a pace roughly 30 to 60 seconds per mile faster than the target marathon pace. While my target pace last year was 7:51 per mile, I started the run looking for a 7:08/mile pace. But I kept beating it! Eventually I settled into a 7:00/mile target, but was able to beat that pace consistently -- even at the end. Here are my splits:

6:53
6:58
6:54
6:59
7:00
6:51
6:50

So, my gaggle of running buddies -- Bruce, Chris & John -- and I did extremely well. Certainly the cool weather helped, but so to has the consistent weekly runs that Johnny puts us through.