Speed, and I use that term loosely

I've been running almost 3 years, give or take some time off last year due to tendonitis and a broken ankle.  But 3 years is 3 years and I feel like I haven't made much progress with regard to my pace.  I guess it never was an issue until now.  I'm comfortable running 10:00-11:00/miles.  I've run 5ks, 10ks and now a half marathon but now I feel like I want to be faster.  I suppose that's a natural progression for runners.

I'm a slow runner and I'm okay with that, however, I would like to be a faster slow runner.  Pace doesn't define me.  I know that I'll never win in my age group but I'm still competitive with myself and improving my pace is something that I'd like to work toward.  I've worked up from 0 to 13.1 miles, something I never dreamed was possible, but now it's time for another goal, another challenge.

I've been reading up on how to improve pace.  Tempo runs, intervals, strides, fartleks, hill training etc.  I'm aware of these methods and have even done some of them but not enough to have an impact on my pace.  I don't like running fast, it's hard and it makes me tired and out of breath, but if I want to get faster I'm going to have to run faster.

I'm not really sure what to start with but I'm thinking I might do some fartleks and maybe some intervals.  Since I'm currently not training for anything at the moment I think working on improving my pace will give me something to focus on.  I'm sort of feeling like "what do I do now" now that my half is complete so this will give my running some purpose and another goal to work towards.

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So I went for a run Saturday morning.  I wanted to shake my legs out and get some mileage in but my right foot has been a little sore since my half so I only ran 2 miles.

Thought I'd run out of my comfort zone and speed things up a little.  I told myself to not look at my Garmin because I know that once I see that I'm running "fast" I tend to slow down.  It was hard not to look but once my Garmin beeped at 2 miles I was happy to see the result - 19:08, 9:33 average pace.  For me this is fast and I was able to maintain it for 2 miles.  Yay me.