goodbye, february and hello, march! (and hi there, PRs??)

this was february (129.52 miles in 19h 57m 26s):

and this is march!

and what's that I see on march 16? well, hello there, little green square. the B&A Trail Half Marathon is coming up on March 16 - it's hard to believe that's less than two weeks ago ! (it's a trail marathon in that it's on the Baltimore Annapolis Trail, but it's a paved path that goes from BWI airport to Annapolis... not a real 'trail'). Based on my 5K at the Penguin Pace in February and my consistent training, I feel confident hopeful that I can PR at B&A Half. McMillan predicts a 1:46:25, which would be a PR by about 30 seconds. It's an 8:07 pace which just seems so fast.

I'm also eying PRs for other distances this year. [the marathon? maybe. I will have to evaluate closer to November]. man, these are old. like during law school old.

Current PRs
Penguin Pace 5K: 22:59 on 02/03/13 (pace_ 7:24)
Pike's Peek 10K: 47:29 on 04/29/07 (pace_ 7:38)
Army 10M: 1:21:46 on 10/08/06 (pace_ 8:10)
Baltimore HM: 1:46:57 on 10/13/07 (pace_ 8:09)
National Marathon: 3:53:13 on 03/21/09 (pace_ 8:54)

I have races of all those distances this year so
I will have my chances.

today's run on the B&A trail

was a 3/1 long run. per Higdon, a 3/1 run is one in which you run the first three-fourths of the distance at a comfortable pace, then accelerate to near race pace over the last one quarter of the workout. the wind was really against me and somehow knew to pick it up when I had to pick it up!

splits:

1			9:28
2			9:25
3			9:19
4			9:27
5			9:11
6			9:24
7			9:22
8			9:23
9			9:11
10			8:43
11			8:35
12			8:31
13			8:29
14			8:29

how's that for a negative split?

and then this happened which was terrible but hot tea and playing on pinterest on my phone made it bearable for 10 minutes.