Speed work turned into a pace run... 7 miles

I'm going to try to race the Forest City Road Races Half Marathon on Sunday. The ideal result would be a sub-1:40 half, which equates to 4:44 per km (7:35 per mile). Coach Brian's advice for tonight's speed work was to do 2 miles of warm up, 3 or 4 miles at half-marathon pace, and then a mile or two of cool down for a total of 7 miles.

We did the standard 1 mile warm up with the Runner's Choice gang, so I only needed to do 6 additional miles -- roughly 9.6 km. Here are my kilometre splits:

4:48 (1 km warm-up)
4:56 pace (600 m. warm-up)
4:38
4:48
4:40
4:35
4:44
4:36
4:37 pace (467 m.)
5:03 (1 km cool-down)
4:57 (622 m. cool-down)

The overall average was 4:45, so quite acceptable considering the warm up and cool-down are included in this average. I was very comfortable running at the warm-up and cool-down pace, which tells me that even if I'm struggling in the half, I should be able to knock off a 5 minute kilometre pace.

It was sort of warm tonight (best guess is 15 degrees C.) so if it is cool on Sunday morning, I should be in good shape. Right now the weather forecast is for a low of 8 degrees and a high of between 16 and 18 degrees. The race starts at 8 am on Sunday, so it should be on the cooler side of that range. Let's hope!