7+ miles tempo

I woke up yesterday still with a cough and not feeling too great so had to give the 10K a miss. By the time I went to bed it was definitely wearing off so this evening I tackled my usual route of 7 miles or so (probably not as much as 7.5 after all) and tried to make the best of a bad lot by doing it fast, having tapered for a race I ended up not running. I felt quite heavy for the first couple of miles but got to the gates of the Science Park in 18:something and passed the last barrier before the Kelvin in exactly 20 minutes, which was as fast as I'd ever reached that point before, so it looked like I had a shot at my route PB of 45:24. Felt OK on Great Western Road where I might normally start to flag, and reached the bin opposite Hughenden in 33:25 - 35 minutes is the usual benchmark for how I'm doing at this point. I had some good luck with traffic lights and sub-45 was definitely on the cards when I passed the pedestrian crossing near Achilles Heel on the 40-minute mark. 3 minutes from Kelvinbridge to home is just about as fast as I've ever run it, so 41:44 at that point gave me a real chance - by now the PB was in the bag anyway. I picked it up as if it was the end of a race, only lost a couple of seconds crossing Maryhill Road, and arrived home in 44:44. It wasn't quite race pace, probably just over 6-minute miles. Very pleased to go through a barrier before the year is out - reminds me of the old days where I'd run the same couple of routes every week and scribble down a note of my times on the back of an old envelope.