Ok after last week's what I thought to be an abysmal effort I've realised that both Runkeeper and Google Maps were telling porkies about my distance!! I'd done the distance (a local circuit from my flat) and it'd given me a time of 16:43; one which I was disappointed by but resided to.
After re-measuring the route using Microsoft MapPoint it appears that my 16 minute time was actually for a distance of 2.2 miles instead of the 1.5 I thought. As a result today's 10:47 for 1.5 miles is about the benchmark I was hoping to achieve but hopefully i'll be able to knock a few seconds off over the next few weeks training.

Just the push ups and sit ups to train for now....update soon!