Training is everything

Today was long run day, well long for me since I had to cut my running after my right foot injurie. I had to run 20 minutes three times with a 1 minute break between each. As usual I walked 5 minute as a warm-up then started running, everything went really well. I tried not to push too hard since I still feel some pain in my right foot sometimes.

Here are my splits
20m 00s - 3.75 kms - 05m 20s /km
01m 00s - 0.13 kms - 07m 37s /km
20m 00s - 3.83 kms - 05m 13s /km
01m 00s - 0.13 kms - 07m 43s /km
20m 00s - 3.82 kms - 05m 14s /km

When I got back home I checked my times and realised that I beat my 10k PR during that run. I ran 10k, including two walking breaks of one minute in 53:25.

This made me realise how much training makes the difference. Last year I started running on July 7th and I ran my first 10k race on August 24th in 58:14 and I thought I was about to die. I ran a half mary later last fall and kept training during the entire winter.

It's nice to see that I improved that much over the winter, 5 minutes on my 10k time and I was not even racing. I know I can push a lot more then that during a race, I kept my heart rate mostly in zone two during my entire workout today.

Now the real question is, can this count as my new personal best even if I didn't do it during an official race. I will have to think about it.