They are still mere mortals.

Mile-posts has made it so relieving to hear that she is still mere mortal. Her's and msftrunner's timing are to die for and I can never imagine myself to gey even close to that. But it's so relieving to hear that mileposts herself has never ever imagined tgat herself too.

http://www.mile-posts.com/2013/08/reader-questions-1-growth.html

Her average pace for her first race 11 min per mile. That works out to around 6:50 mins per km. My first race was MPIB 12 km and it was around 6:30 pace. Quite impressive I would say.

 I was wondering myself what could have been the success factor of my HM debut. Well, the timing is nothing compared to elite timing or those in the US but considering a brag worth PR recorded in the debut, 2nd running year (only started to compete competitively in 2012), post maternity (though ive been running throughout, but it was mostly at my comfort distance and the pace got slower and slower as the pregnancy progressed) and I beat everyone's hm debut timing...and quite significantly..

Ive been following mcmillan's training plan as supplemented by scklm in the website. Followed the beginner's hm plan, skipped few wks where possible as I started quite late with the training, if the race had gone as originally scheduled. Since it was postponed, I skipped to intermediate hm training plan midway. But what's in it that has made it quite a success.. the long run is only capped at 90 mins. It hardly reached 15 km for my pace, I had to go a bit longer if I want to meet the 15km target. And I had not followed it vigilently, as I dont have the luxury of mid week long run (mid week long run proposed by the plan can reach 70 mins towards the end). And I often skipped the hill repeats and 100 m repeats..if I had folowed more diligently, I think even a sub 2 is possible. And now that im past that, I'm not sure on how to plan my training like. Objective now is more on improving the pr, while at the same time preparing myself for a full marathon.

I know for sure strength training and tempo has helped me during the race.. strong core made runs become more effortless.. and the occasional interval has definitely helped as well. But I never know for sure what is the theory behind it. And mileposts has put it simpe and clear. Ir's all about challenging yourself more and not letting your body too used to a certain routine or regime. The idea behind intervals are not letting your body predicts what's coming up next. And challenging your body as soon as it thinks it can recover. But on top of that, challenging your body more is about doing faster on your speedwork and going easier to the point that it got  insanely easy on your easy days. No wonder mcmillan's training has not require you to go very long on your long runs. Cos it doean't suppose to be so tough in the first place. Though the long runs are important, the midweek speedwork is just as important if not more important. It definitely more important to be followed than having a very long and stretched lsd. This is something that fellow friends have been doing (very long lsd), and the result has proven to be not working very well.

So conclusion, you dont have to be away from home so much in order to improve your training. And that is a big yea for me. A big excuse for me not to have a big distance weekend run. What I'll need to work on more  is maybe the hills, which I so hate of doing..and setting faster pace on my tempo. That's what quality training about.

Remember, go faster on fast days, and slower on easy days. Though it may seem too impossible now, it is actually possible. And it goes out to everything else in life.