Hoping to leave 9:00 miles in the past

Tokyo, Week 4, Day 4; 3 miles, 8:59/mile.
Tokyo, Week 4, Day 5; 9 miles, 9:07/mile.

On Thursday, I went out at an easy-peasy pace, and ended up with 8:59/mile. Getting my easy-peasy pace down below 9:00/mile is a little mini goal I've been looking forward to.

Today's 9 miler, the longest run yet in this training schedule, is hopefully a sign that I'm almost there. I came in at 9:07 per mile, when I thought that I was going to be closer to 9:30.

The route was a light and easy run from my daughter's school (dropped her off for some Saturday morning sports), through some graveyard and then back home.

Using my patented Find a Park by Zooming Out on Google Maps™ method, I saw this big green blob on the map and thought that that would be a good place to run. When I finally reached it (at exactly a mile in), there were steps up into it before I could see what it actually was. I ran up the steps to find myself in a graveyard, and not only was I in a graveyard, but I was in a place where there wasn't really a path, so I was basically running in the grass behind some graves. Thinking there was probably something distasteful about doing that, especially after running past a family that was visiting a grave, I hugged the inside perimeter until I found another way out, a few hundred meters down.

After that, I basically ran in a figure-8 pattern, running along the outer perimeter of the graveyard and down a small road that bisected the entire graveyard. I kept repeating that pattern until I had just enough distance left for the run home, and then I headed back. Now that the run's over, I don't really feel all that tired at all, so maybe next week I'll push it a wee bit harder and see if I can leave paces that are 9:00/mile or slower in the past.

If I can do that consistently, that'll at least mean I'll run better than 4 hours for a marathon.