Peach festival 5 miler

Peach festival 5 mile road race today in Wilbraham. I wanted to use this as a gauge to see how much faster I have gotten, and if I could maintain it over a longer distance. It is a wheeled and therefore pretty accurate 5 miles over flat to slightly rolling terrain. Temperature was mid 70's and overcast with wet roads. Very humid. I figured my time would be between 40:00 and 42:30 (big range, yea) with a goal to be sub 41:00, and a stretch goal of sub 40:00. I came in at 40:26, or 8:05 / mile. If I could keep this up, this would mean a 1:45:58 1/2 marathon.... If only...

I warmed up for about 1/2 - 3/4 of a mile with a couple accelerations thrown in. Got the HR to 165 and sat in for a minute or 2. Dropped a gel 15 minutes before the start and did some light stretching. There was a 2 mile split and I clocked at 15:02; not too shabby, HR average was 189 but felt ok. Then I started to get slow. The next 3 miles were 8:25, 8:33; and 8:26. My heart rate monitor started freaking out a bit, I know that I backed off a bit due to not being able to breath (196 on HR monitor) and poured it back on after recovery which explains the slow mile 3. Hopefully the next 3 weeks of speedwork will drop the times a bit more.

Distance: 5 miles Pace: 8:05 HR average: 187