Ok, let's do the splits

Another running post. Yup, this run this morning is worth multiple posts :o) One thing runners talk about all the time is "what were your splits on that run." What they're getting at is how consistent was your pace - did you run the second half the same pace as the first half, or slower (which is the norm but not ideal), or faster (the famed negative split!). I usually ignore splits. Not that they don't make sense - they do. It's just that they make me nervous. If I try to be all technical in a run I get nervous about it and I don't enjoy it and then I don't want to do it. But this year I'm going to try to pay attention to splits. So by way of example, here are the splits on my4 marathons:

Time for 1st 13.1 miles Time for 2nd 13.1 miles Final Time
1. 2:08 (9:45 pace) 2:30 (11:26 pace) 4:38
2. 2:06 (9:36 pace) 2:51 (13:02 pace) 4:57
3. 2:01 (9:13 pace) 2:03 (9:23 pace) 4:04
4. 1:58 (9:00 pace) 2:07 (9:41 pace) 4:05

That number 2 race really sucked, by the way. I've never actually looked at these laid out like this, but it's clear that the better times are the ones where the pace for the 1st half and 2nd half are pretty close, which implies I was able to maintain a consistent speed without going out too fast and crashing and burning at the end.

So for today's 20 miler,it was 1:28:30 for the first 10 and 1:30 for the second 10. Both were at or below a 9 minute pace, and there was very little slow down between the two. So I guess that's good :o) Hopefully if I can keep my pace down at the start of the runs like I did today I can keep the overall time down to my targets.