Mile repeats at 35 weeks! Well, sorta.

Call me crazy, but I decided to join Mark at the Hoboken track this evening for a mini workout. My legs have been feeling pretty good lately, and I wanted to see how fast (or slow, whatever the case may be) I could run a mile in at almost 9-months.

When I joked to Mark that I'd try to go for a 7-minute mile, he just about hit the floor. I think he was a tad nervous that he'd be carrying me straight from the track to the delivery room. But I quickly reassured him that anything under 10 would be satisfying--if, that is, I could finish the mile at all.

So I set out for my four-lapper and was astonished to pass the half-way point at 3:50. For all of you speedsters out there, this is slowpoke slow, but I am carrying a good 30+ extra pounds (including a 5+ lb baby). So I was pleasantly surprised that I was going sub-8 pace. I kept up a smooth pace (feeling totally at ease and not labored at all) and cruised in at 7:37. Woah. 7:37? There were some days when I was actually in shape when I'd be happy to get that time. I proudly ran up to Mark to tell him my time, and at that point he told me that he ran a 6:45 in his mile. Hmmmm. To his credit, Mark is in very good shape these days. But he's more of a 8-minute miler, and breaking 7 would be like Kara Goucher breaking 30 in a track 10K. So we decided that maybe we counted wrong. Though I've certainly done enough miles to know where the finish line is, and how hard is it to keep track of 4 laps, anyway?

After a bit of discussion, we decided to do another "mile" to see if our times varied. Feeling good, I pushed the pace, channeled Paula Radcliffe, and crossed the line in 7:09--beating Mark's time (he started before me, so we weren't racing head-to-head). Excited that I ran almost 30 seconds faster on my second repeat, I jumped as high as I could, which these days is about 3 inches off the ground. But reality soon hit me and I realized that there was no way I could run a 7:09 mile in my state. Alas, the track had to be short. I ran another lap and studied the various markings for the different distances on the track and deduced it our "miles" were actually 1400 meters, a whole 200 meters short. Darn. That means my mile times would actually be closer to 8:25 and 7:55.

In the end, the victory wasn't as sweet. I'm not quite the second-coming of Paula Radcliffe that I had made myself out to be after that 7:09. But I'm still happy that the ol' legs still have some motoring in them...now let's just see how they'll feel post-baby.