Take it to the bridge - how much can you improve your pace?

[RubySlippers]

I'm away from my home patch at the moment, staying with relatives so have sought out a new route along a canal inspired by some lovely recent posts by others on this forum. I did the route on Saturday for my W6R3 going further in one direction as there was a particular view point that I wanted to reach but did OK for me at a pace of 6.5min/km. I've done a slight variation today for W7R1 along the canal turning at a particular bridge at the half way point. I only have a cheapie MP3 player so don't have GPS or Sat Nav or any such fancy gadgets to track my pace.

Both runs have been great, hard work but really enjoyable.

When I've got back and plotted todays run on Map My Run I can't remember for sure which bloomin' bridge I've turned at so I've either done really rubbish and slowed to 7.4 min/km or really fab and speeded up to 6.1min/km. It's only now that I'm onto the complete runs with no walking that I can get a feel for my pace so I don't know if you can jump forwards or backwards that much? I did feel as though I worked a little harder today.

I know none of this matters and it's only numbers but I would like to complete W9R3 doing 5k if possible or W10 if needs be. I guess it's that 'does what it says on the tin' mentality as I'd like to graduate for both W9R3 and 5k together. Any thoughts especially from those who track their pace regularly.

[Hidden]

I can't really help on pace at the moment, but I do love my canal route... runkeeper.com/user/astilla/...

[RubySlippers Graduate in reply to Hidden]

I can see why. Sunshine on water, it's lovely. And always level too, those Victorian engineers didn't realise what a brilliant resource they were creating.

[Hidden in reply to RubySlippers]

I thought that too last week, about the flat, then I discovered the route I was running had bridges to get over junctions and many locks to go down a hill, in was an out and back route so I ran up that hill. Still a lovely run mind

[Hules Graduate]

I have been tracking my pace with my garmin I got for my birthday last September and my 5km can range from 6.37 to my fastest at 5.57 but recently it has been around 6.2 - don't feel too pressured to do certain times but if it helps you get motivated that's fine and if it helps you enjoy it! Well done!

[RubySlippers Graduate in reply to Hules]

Thanks Hules, very interesting results. Do you rate your garmin? I'm going to treat myself to some suitable gadgetry as a gift for graduating so I'm interested to know what people are using and how worthwhile they find them. The prospect of geeky graphs and my own music has massive appeal.

[Hules Graduate in reply to RubySlippers]

I have a forerunner 10 so just the basic one which is very easy to use (and purple!) and I love the website which you upload your data to and it gives you all the graphs and records everything - sometimes it's just nice to look at and think I did all that!

[RubySlippers Graduate in reply to Hules]

Love it, that sounds right up my street. I'll have a look. many thanks