The Perfect Run

I run to train.  I am not a racer, but I do set the bar high, and attempt to meet my goal year after year.
Some weeks the strangest things happen.  This past weekend I ran a 5k race just to test my fitness.  It was a nice controlled 21:33 run.. Evenly paced @ 6:49 6:50 and 7:05 minute per mile.  I was happy with my times, nothing new was showing up in my data, and as my times would reveal I trained to be able to run like this.. Not any faster, not any slower.  Honestly, I don't know if I have run one mile in training faster than 6:38 this year.  So, these results are what I would expect.  What gets me, is that on Tuesday morning I went out on a 13.1 mile training run and ran consistent sub marathon pace miles.  In there I ran a 7:04  7:05 6:46 6:54 7:10 7:21 7:22 and only ran 4 miles over my marathon training pace.   13.1 miles is way more of an effort than a 5k, and I will admit, I felt super fresh after having two days of rest, and there was a nice chill in the air, but what happened?  Did I just drastically improve?  Days like this are hard to understand.  My long term goal for 2012 -2013 is to get myself down into the sub 1:30 Half marathon pace, but that is long term, and a goal.  Its hard for me to have a strong 1:37.40 training run and not think that I can run a 1:35 or under this October.  Its even harder for me to not lay everything on the table and just go for it.  I have to remind myself that running is about consistency, and sometimes you need to pull on the reins a tiny bit to really reap the rewards of proper training.
My goal is not to blow my own doors off in October, but to take this baseline marathon training and continue to build off of it into the 2012 season.  I realize that I have just started to get myself into really good shape, and I have a long way to go.  If I was to judge my level of fitness by my flexibility and strength I would say I have a couple of years to go at least.
This week marks my first 50 mile plus week in over 20 years.  I am tweaking my training a little bit by adding one double a week.  This way all of my runs don't have to be so long.  I am excited to see what is going to happen.