Modified becuase I found a race. I'll do one of two possible 5K's in my area in the next few weeks and a half in August. Very exciting! I am pretty much a 10-min mile girl lately. I have really make an effort to run slower on long runs, and I have a hard time hurting myself to go much faster. I dug up my previous races on the internet and I've got right on the same pace for the 3 5K's I've done in my life. (It's probably more accurate to call these social events with my girlfriends, with very little training prior to them.) Obviously, I've gotten older, but 5 years ago I was right where I was a few months ago. 2000 21 F DAVIDSON NC 30:27 9:49 HARRIS YMCA 5K - CHARLOTTE 2001 30:35 9:51 22 M 1209 CHESTNUT HILL MA 3RD ANNUAL MARINO LOOKOUT FARM 5K ROAD RACE - NATICK And my last 5K (Nov. 06, within a month of starting training) was 9:52 pace. Talk about consistency! It just seems that my body moves at that speed?! Nearly all of my runs are right at 10 mins/mile, and I'm not very good at pushing myself. I'd like to start working in some variation (speed, hills) into my workouts. Right now I'm trying to run 4 days/week. What would you guys recommend to beat this consistency thing I've got going?

I concur with MikeyMike, and I'm going to admit that when I am on a regular racing schedule (not that I'm an elite or anything) but when I do put myself on a regular schedule of racing I start to miss the patterns of my races. For a while I was running a 1/2 marathon every month and a half. The first month and a half that went by with no half-marathon I kind of went through weird feeling. I think my body actually missed running one! Does that make sense? Anyhow I'm a firm believer in setting up a nice solid race schedule. Good luck!