I just dropped a minute off my mile time yesterday using a technique I had learned about 4 hours earlier and I know I would have been able to keep that same pace for mile number two,(it was interval day for me) and I haven't run in three weeks... here's how. My buddy hooked me up with something he read in the Triathalete's Bible. What you do is you run however far you want to run but you count your steps. Count every left pace till you get to 45 left paces. You want to get these 45 paces in exactly 30 seconds. So everytime you hit 45 paces you should be able to look at your watch and see 30 seconds has passed. The first time we did it yesterday we ran an easy 6.30 mile. I wasn't winded or anything. A few hours later I ran by myself keeping the same 45 paces but just increasing my stride while staying in the 30 second window. I dropped to a 5.35 mile. Which isn't too bad, and yes I was winded but the pace would have been easy to keep for another mile. I was amazed at this seemingly simple technique and now I can't wait to go running and I hate to run. Setting that time limit on your paces was in a way to me like doing a formation run in the sense that I'm not going to fall out of formation, and I was damned sure I wasn't going to fall out of the time window. So this worked for me and my buddy who is an awesome runner. Might not work for everyone but hey its worth a try. Let me know what you think if you do it.