Long Run

I imagine at some point in the near future I'll have a training peaks account. It's an online tool to log workouts and track progress. But for now I'll record things here. Today's run was a 7 mile loop (Becky, the one we did before the Bolder Boulder last May). When I do long runs, I try to run at a pace that keeps my heart rate down and I also walk every 10-20 minutes for a minute to relax. When I did this run in May, my average pace was 10:34 minute miles and today it was 10:37. But, in May my average heart rate was 165 bpm and today it was 158 bpm so I think that is a sign of gained fitness this summer. And the thing to really remember is my Bolder Boulder pace from '08 was 10:31 and my heart rate was maxed out. I'm slowly gaining running fitness and I have faith that someday I'll be a little bit faster. I'd really like my long run pace to be 10:00 and my 5k race pace to be 8:30. Reasonable, right?