The Elusive Negative Splits

Up until a couple of months ago, I had heard the term negative splits, but I had no clue what it meant. It finally dawned on me when looking at someone's training run, that negative splits meant your pace going down as your miles went up. Ohhhhh shiny new thing! I like setting new, smaller goals for myself when I'm working towards bigger goals. Right now my big goals are the 4 half marathons I will be doing this fall/winter. I'm registered for the Rock N Roll Half in St. Louis on October 27, then just 13 days later I'm registered for Disney's Wine and Dine Half, on November 9. I plan on registering for the Tinkerbell Half in Disneyland in January as soon as registration opens next month, and the April's United States Half Marathon Tour will culminate with the Glass Slipper Challenge in Disney World in February, a 10k on Saturday and the Princess Half Marathon on Sunday. While the first of all of these races is coming up sooner than it seems, I usually have a hard time staying focused and maintaining training. I learned my lesson with that towards the end of my training, and during the Princess Half Marathon this year, ending up injured. I refuse to let myself do that again, so I'm planning on a more regular training schedule, starting early, and climbing in miles a lot slower than I did last time. In order to motivate myself to keep going on a regular basis, I set little goals for myself. I want to beat my 5k PR of 29:54, I'd like to beat my 10k PR of 1:09:, and I want to do 3+ miles with negative splits. I've been doing a lot of treadmill running lately and finally decided to take myself outside for a run this evening. I set the pace setter up on my Garmin for a 10:45 min pace. On the treadmill I've been averaging around 10:20 for 2-3 miles, but those are nicer conditions, no hills, and right under the air conditioning vent. It was warmer outside, and not flat. I was very obviously not a runner when I picked what neighborhood to live in, because I went and picked one with a whole bunch of hills. I hate hills, but knowing the RnR Half in St. Louis is nice and hilly, I know I have to suck it up and face them here at home. I set out, it was warm, the sweat started immediately, but I got the first mile done in 10:06. Sweet, well under my goal pace. Naturally, right after I hit the first mile, I hit the first hill. I powered up but the 2nd mile was done in 10:23. Well, so long negative splits. I ended up right at 3 miles and my splits looked like this:

Now I could go on about not speeding up, but there are tons of positives here that I'm really pleased with. For one, I'm still running pain free. Keep in mind that since PHM this year, I'd battled ITBS and knee pain. It took over 2 months to be able to run pain free. Because of that injury, I had to back off from running, a lot, and am just now starting to add miles back. I also had to start again using intervals, and only in the past 2-3 weeks have I been skipping intervals and running straight through. Still I remain pain free, so this makes me happy. Secondly, I love watching my training pace improve. At this point last year, I hadn't even started running yet. I started in July, and even through the fall and winter, my training pace stayed around 11:30-12 mins per mile. In the heat of last summer, it was even higher at some points, climbing as high as 13 mins a mile. But I've changed, and shaved 1-2 mins off of my normal training pace. This really helps because one of my goals this fall is to run the RnR Half in less than 2:30. I'm pumped about getting there. Just goes to show you that just because one goal isn't met, it doesn't mean that I'm not improving and growing stronger, because I am.