First Magic Mile

The purpose of running a magic mile in Jeff Galloway world is to predict what your training pace and race pace should be at your current fitness level. I really should have read a little more about it before I did it, but I didn't. It wasn't detrimental. It just would've helped to know that I could run/walk at a slower pace for the warm-up mile. It was really nice to be able to run/walk 3 miles and that was what my training plan said to do! We, my friend Allison and I, were slated to do it on Saturday, but I was out at a concert and then couldn't go to sleep when I did get to bed. So, only have about 4.5 hours of sleep, I decided with Allison to postpone.  We ended up run/walking on Sunday morning.

We actually ran to people that I knew and we hadn't run (pun not necessarily intended) into on the Sand Run trail previously. It was great to catch up with them.  So we set out on our magic mile mission. Allison did remind me to slow down a bit when we started which helped. With all of our positive thinking/talking training combined with our physical training, we hit our second mile with some gusto. The intention was to run/walk faster because this was our timed mile. We skimped on the talking unless necessary. Yes, we may have sang a Miley Cyrus song along the way. We also gave ourselves some credit because it was probably the most humid morning that we have faced yet. I think we even still tried to say hello to people. If I missed saying hello to you during this magic mile, I sincerely apologize. I was just trying to stay focused on breathing.

One of the funny moments was when I was going to jog past the 1.5 mile marker because I was so used to running past it.  Thankfully, Allison had her wits about her and reminded me to turn around.  And then we got to run/walk down most of the hills that we just came up. That was nice!  We were able to complete this magic mile in record time for us. 13 minutes.  Yep, that was 13 minutes.  We had been do anywhere from 15-16.5 minutes per mile up to this.  Now, I understand that this was the whole purpose of the magic mile, but I still feel a sense of accomplishment.

We then were able to do a slow run/walk back to the beginning of the trail.  This is also where I wish I read the page on Jeff's website about the magic mile.  He says to walk for 5 minutes after the magic mile and then do a slow run/walk for as long is planned.  This probably would have helped us recover a little before finishing that last mile.  Oh, well. Lesson learned and first magic mile completed. 


Our training pace for the half-marathon should be 17:54 min/mile (3:54:29) and our projected half-marathon race pace should be 15:36 min/mile (3:24:22).  This is especially exciting because when I registered for the Akron Roadrunner, I had to write down a projected race finish time. Guess what I wrote down, well, typed? I put 3 hours and 30 minutes! When we started training, I did not fully believe that I was going to hit that. And here I am half way into training and that looks like it will be completely do-able. It really is amazing to be able to have not only the mental and physical benefits of training, but the spiritual benefits as well.  To be able to face my fears, and train for something that I never thought I could do is just the "face-lift" I need for my spirit. Namaste.