Speed again? Twice in a year..

Day 95 Wednesday 4th April 6 miles: miles to date 618.5

I find myself at a bit of a cross roads. I have been for the last few years an ultra distance bod and my average mile times reflect that. I have vanquished any thoughts of speed work and chosen long slow miles, almost every time. Next month me and a few pals are going to run a trail which is about 78 miles, without a race and prize. We are doing it just for the crack. The hiccup is that I appear to be getting faster on the short stuff and the two just don't mix, unless you are Jez Bragg or Lizzy Hawker.
I only ran six miles tonight but the first four were at an average of 6 minutes 50 seconds per mile, albeit it at that point I hit a very busy main road, crossed it and ran into a few miles of hilly woods on the other side which slowed me down a lot. I think and indeed hope that I may have had a serious change in attitude and acceptance of pain levels on the really short stuff. I have long been able to accept the loss of toenails (badge of honour really), the psychological impact of trying to run 50, 80 or 100 miles or more, exhaustion and hallucinations (which are actually quite fun but take at least 36 hours of running). I haven't though wanted to face the pain of a lung buster over say twenty minutes at full tilt. I wasn't at full tilt tonight and must have still run very close to my best ever 5k race time, albeit it I have only ever run two 5k races.
I want to run a marathon time later in the year, at a pace that I cant possibly mention in the same way as Harry cant mention Voldemort. Dooohhh. Just another 22 miles then at that pace. Mmmmm.