One of my 5 readers has posted comments recently about how she is impressed that I ran 13 miles faster than she ran 8 miles. Then she commented about thinking she may just be one of those runners that plateau and really aren’t meant to be fast. I responded to her encouraging her to hang in there and telling her that it wasn’t so long ago that I used to be running 10, 11 minute miles (I was low heart rate training, but still . . .)
So just for fun I went back to my now closed runnin-from-the-law.blogspot.com blog (any readers of this blog who followed me back then?? I still use the blog as a reference point.) and looked at my very first blog post. Here it is, from December 2007:
Day 1 of my Half Marathon training plan
Proof that anyone can improve! That was 5 years ago and 30 minutes at 8:30 pace was my speed work and felt challenging. Now I do many of my TWENTY mile training runs (2 hours and 45 minutes??!) at FASTER than 8:30 pace.
Also funny to note that even 5 years later some things don’t change: I was enjoying many the occasional cocktail back then too!
So hang in there people. Dedication, consistency and smart training will bring improvement. So fun to look back on how much I’ve improved! 🙂
Runnin' From The Law 
Hmm, I’m still not persuaded you were ever as slow as I am, doing low HRT at 15+min/mi!! BUT, today I did a long run of 9.5 in 2.01 AND had a negative split! I was very, very pleased with that and I will say I ran my tail off on the way home. Hope to post about this later on my blog. I do appreciate the encouragement!
I was wondering: any chance you’re planning to do the Monster Dash (any length)? I was thinking of trying to do that as my first half–perhaps even in costume!
consistency trumps everything. as long as you are consistent, you will see improvement.
i just finished up a slow 13-miler in 2:05. it’s funny that, 10 years ago, i ran a 2:15 in my first HM!
I needed that post today. Time for me to change things up. Your progress is pretty dang amazing!