I never could get the hang of negative splits. No matter how hard I tried, I usually failed to run the second half fast enough. So I stopped trying, figuring it was not my style.
This year's harsh weather sparked a turn in my thinking. All the snow, ice, and freezing-cold single-digit temperatures forced me to take my runs a lot more slowly. The upshot was that I ended up with negative splits, almost every time, and that is when it hit me:
The problem I had before was not that I was not running the second half fast enough; it was that I was not running the first half slow enough.
In the past, I would do a five mile run in, say, 38 minutes by running either even splits or doing the first half at a low-7:00s pace and gradually slowing down. But now, I am doing 38-minute five milers by starting with an 8:00+ pace and gradually speeding up. Saving all that energy for the second half feels great and by the end, I feel better and stronger.
Now, I make it my goal to do a negative split on every run that is not a "quality" workout (speed, pace, tempo, etc.). I truly believe this will help my marathon, which is in 25 days.
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