One Mile Prediction Run

Black Friday. Lots of people get up early in the morning to go shopping, but eight people in Iowa City. We got together at rW-downtown at 4:30 - 5:00 AM. Ran 1.5 miles to the track in City-High and lined up to run 1 mile. I had to guess what my time would be. My 1-mile PR is 6:06.  But, I had no idea how fast I could run this morning. I just said 7:00 to say something. Got ready and went. Four laps. Finished in 6:36.  I was happy with the time. Fastest runner finished in about 5:00 min.
I wonder. How other runners my age, or older, can run a lot faster. It all means, there is a lot of room for improvement. I will keep running intervals once a week and try to do better.

Negative Splits

The importance of negative splits. The website for the ING NYC Marathon is allowing to select a runner and see how he ran the marathon, mile per mile. I checked the winner of the ING NYC Marathon Geoffrey Mutai. He also won this marathon and the Boston marathon in 2011. Mutai runs negative splits. Meaning he tries to run each mile either at the same pace or faster than the previous one. Here's his mile splits:

Distance	Time of Day	Elapsed Time	Est. Finish	Pace/Mile
5K	09:58:53 AM	0:15:42	11:55:24 AM	05:03
10K	10:14:06 AM	0:30:54	11:53:33 AM	04:59
Mile 8	10:22:56 AM	0:39:44	11:53:19 AM	04:58
Mile 9	10:27:46 AM	0:44:35	11:52:57 AM	04:58
15K	10:29:17 AM	0:46:06	11:52:45 AM	04:57
Mile 10	10:32:37 AM	0:49:25	11:52:40 AM	04:57
Mile 11	10:37:53 AM	0:54:42	11:53:28 AM	04:59
Mile 12	10:42:46 AM	0:59:34	11:53:14 AM	04:58
20K	10:44:57 AM	1:01:46	11:53:22 AM	04:59
Mile 13	10:47:44 AM	1:04:33	11:53:16 AM	04:58
Half	10:48:17 AM	1:05:06	11:53:23 AM	04:59
Mile 14	10:52:30 AM	1:09:19	11:52:54 AM	04:58
Mile 15	10:57:25 AM	1:14:13	11:52:50 AM	04:57
25K	11:00:14 AM	1:17:03	11:53:10 AM	04:58
Mile 16	11:02:26 AM	1:19:15	11:52:57 AM	04:58
Mile 17	11:07:05 AM	1:23:54	11:52:29 AM	04:57
Mile 18	11:11:48 AM	1:28:37	11:52:10 AM	04:56
30K	11:14:52 AM	1:31:41	11:52:03 AM	04:56
Mile 19	11:16:33 AM	1:33:21	11:51:55 AM	04:55
Mile 20	11:21:37 AM	1:38:26	11:52:08 AM	04:56
Mile 21	11:26:23 AM	1:43:12	11:51:56 AM	04:55
35K	11:29:55 AM	1:46:44	11:51:45 AM	04:55
Mile 22	11:31:03 AM	1:47:52	11:51:38 AM	04:55
Mile 23	11:35:42 AM	1:52:31	11:51:22 AM	04:54
Mile 24	11:40:38 AM	1:57:26	11:51:24 AM	04:54
40K	11:44:43 AM	2:01:32	11:51:19 AM	04:54
Mile 25	11:45:26 AM	2:02:15	11:51:18 AM	04:54
Mile 26	11:50:29 AM	2:07:18	11:51:28 AM	04:54
Finish	11:51:35 AM	2:08:24	11:51:35 AM	04:55

I guess running like this requires excellent training and mental control. He definitely was running his race. I would like to do my long runs like this. Interestingly, our Sunday run was pretty much negative splits. Trying to keep the pace or running each mile faster. This kind of training will definitely build endurance. There is only one second differences between certain miles. One second... This guy is a running machine!