Today I ran the third run of Week 7 - again 25 minutes, straight. Friday's run will simply be an increase to 28 minutes. I've certainly felt like I've got another three minutes in me every time I've done 25 this week.
A couple of things were different.
I ran later, setting off just after 9.30am. This meant it was warmer (similar to how it was at 7.30 a couple of weeks ago) and that made me uncomfortable. I tend to sweat a lot even when it's cool, but today was a drip day.
I also had eaten breakfast 90 minutes or so before I went out. It wasn't heavy, but it was a difference that I was aware of, I didn't feel quite as light and easy.
And I tried listening to a podcast while I ran. I've avoided music so far because I find it interferes with my ability to maintain the pace I want, I fall instead into the rhythm of the music (and that usually means I run faster and run out of steam earlier). It felt good to have something else going on, but I'm not sure I'll do it again. I lost consciousness of my pace and my rhythm and about half way through started to think that maybe I'd been running too fast and might not make it. This together with the raised temperature and the later time/food thing meant that I didn't really enjoy the second half of the run.
Strava tells me that my average pace was just the same today as it was on Monday, so something in those changes meant I was just feeling it harder than usual. I'm not going to mess with the timing/food thing again, but I might try the podcast and see whether it makes a difference on its own.