Pheidippides’s BodyBlog

Since taking up running again three years ago I’ve raced a lot of distances from 5K to marathon, and I’ve incorporated virtually every distance into interval training, but I hadn’t really timed myself in an all out mile.  I vaguely recall timing myself at an all out mile between two mile markers on the bike trail near my house when I was in my early 20s.  As I recall I ran something under 6 minutes, possibly as fast as 5:45, but I never wrote it down and I’m not really sure.  In the last three years I’ve run mile intervals, and I’ve occasionally timed myself to see how fast I can run a mile, but I’ve never really made an all out attempt to run one mile as fast as I can.  My fastest timed mile in the last three years had been a bit over 6:01 over the first leg of one of my 5K races this year.

Yesterday I decided to see, once and for all, how fast I can run a mile.  The previous day I had run 11.2 miles, so I knew my legs might be just a bit heavy, but they felt O.K.  I started running at about 9:30, and the temperature was still decent but climbing rapidly (it reached 100 degrees yesterday by late afternoon).  I ran slowly (ave. around 9 minute pace) down to the river and along the trail to the 11 mile mark, about 2.1 miles from my house.  I took my Garmin with me to help me pace myself, since I knew it would be hard to keep pace without it.  I used the training assistant feature, which, when I started my mile, would tell me at all times how many feet I was ahead or behind my goal time.  I set a goal time of 5:55 minutes, got a start running toward the mile mark, and pushed start as I sped past the mark.

Since I hadn’t really tried running this distance like this, it felt unfamiliar.  I’ve run half mile intervals that fast but not miles.  After 400 meters I was well ahead of my pace, 60 feet or more ahead, but that number started dropping after that.  I managed not to fall behind pace, though, and with 300 meters to go I pushed harder to see how fast I could go.  I finished in 5:52.  It was tiring but not exhausting; under race conditions I think I could have gone under 5:40, but it’s very hard to keep pushing yourself at that speed when you’re running alone.

So, my first mile ended at 5:52, and that gives me a good bench mark to try to improve upon.  I think I can realistically get that time down to 5:35 this fall, although it may be difficult if I don’t concentrate on the mile as a goal distance.  Focus now is on the upcoming half marathon, then the 10K in November, then the marathon in December.

I’ve added to my goals for the fall to dovetail with my running goals. Today I weighed and measured myself, with the following results: weight: 170 lbs; BF 15.3%, waist 36 inches.  The weight is better than I expected, and the BF is about the lowest measurement ever.  My goals are fairly modest; I want them to complement my marathon training program rather than to distract attention and effort from it.  My goal date is Friday, November 20, a bit more than two weeks before the marathon (and, notably, before Thanksgiving — I’m not a masochist!).

The goals:

1) Reduce weight from 170 pounds to under 165 pounds

2) Reduce bodyfat from 15.3% to under 14%

3) Reduce waist line (as measured at the widest point just under the navel) from 36 inches to just under 34 inches.

Of these goals, weight loss is most important.  The other two measurements should follow if I really do get my weight down to under 165 pounds.

Running is going well, but I have a lot of work to do to make up for lost time from my summer injury and ramp up my weekly mileage.  Last week I ran three times for a total of 30.3 miles.  My long run on Sunday was 15 miles, and my legs were quite sore.  Today I ran 9.3 miles, including fast intervals of 3 x half mile and 1 x one mile, average pace 6:23 min/mile.  Achilles tendon feels great — no soreness right now.

Summer is over, with mixed results.  On the plus side, I achieved my pushups goal of 55 in one set before Labor Day, the first time I’ve done that in my life.  I lowered by bodyfat percentage a little bit, and I achieved personal best times in the 5K, 8K, 10K, and 10 miles between May and September (O.K., the 8K and 10K were my first races at those distances, but still).

On the negative side, I injured my Achilles tendon in July, setting me back in my running a little.  Now that it’s over it doesn’t seem to have hurt my speed much, but my mileage base is way off where I wanted it to be.  I had hoped by Labor Day to be running 40 plus miles per week, and I’m only at 20 miles per week.  I plan to get that over 30 this week by the end of Sunday, but I still don’t have the base I wanted to have to train for the December marathon.  My legs feel pretty strong, though, and I think I can ramp up.

The injury hurt my diet plans, too, because I suddenly wasn’t burning the calories I was when I was running 35 to 40 miles per week.  So I essentially have lost no weight since May, after some initial very encouraging loss in June.  My body seems to want to hold steady at 172 pounds, and it resists any effort to get under that.

My goals for this fall:

1.  Run California International Marathon again, and improve my personal best marathon time by at least 10 minutes and finish under 3:10

2.  Finish a half marathon (probably the Cowtown in three weeks) in under 1:30.

3.  Finish a 10K in under 40 minutes (this is the most challenging goal)

4.  Get weight under 168.

5.  Hold my ability to do 55 pushups in a single set (I’ll concentrate on improving it later)

6.  Get bodyfat percentage under 15%, from current level of somewhere around 17 something % (it varies a lot day to day)

I ran a local Buffalo Stampede 10 mile race yesterday morning.  Last year, I finished in 1:12:04, a time that disappointed me a bit, since I’d been hoping to crack 1:10 (a 7 minute pace).  After running the first third of the race at about 6:45 pace, however, I couldn’t hold on, and slowed a lot.

This year I wasn’t sure what to expect.  Based upon race results earlier in the year, I judged myself to be more aerobically fit and faster than last year.  On the other hand, an Achilles tendon injury I suffered seven weeks ago set my mileage way back.  After almost three weeks of virtually no running, leading up to the race I’d averaged about 20 miles for four weeks.  Not a very impressive mileage base.  I thought I’d be able to start fast but wasn’t sure about holding on.

The weather this time was much more favorable, probably only about 60 degrees at the 8 a.m. race start.  I lined up about 4 rows back of the starting line (there were over 430 runners).  The plan was to run the first half at just under 7 minute pace, then try to push over the last half.  My goal was to do better than 1:09, but I told myself I’d be content with under 1:10.  Right from the beginning I blew my plan right out of the water, starting way too fast — 6:34 for the first mile, 6:40 for the second, 6:50 for the third.  At that point there were no more mile markers until mile 8, so I didn’t really know how fast I was going.  I slowed quite a bit, but not nearly as much as last year.  By the time I reached the 8 mile mark, a lot of runners had passed me (having started more sensibly than I did), but by my watch I saw I’d run the previous five miles at about 6:57 pace.  So I was still on track to reach my goal, and I told myself I had to keep up the pace to get it done.  I ran the 9th mile in 6:55, and at that point knew I’d beat 1:10 and thought I’d probably beat 1:09. At that point I tried to keep up with runners ahead of me to prevent myself from falling off pace.  I only passed a couple, but the tactic worked at preventing me from slowing down further.  I completed the last mile in 6:56 and finished overall in 1:08:42.  That’s an average 6:52 min/mile pace.

Given my injury setbacks I’m pretty happy with that, and I’m using that time to prepare my marathon training plan.  The California International Marathon is 12 weeks away, and my goal this time is to beat last year’s time by 10 minutes and get under 3:10.  I have two half marathons and one 10K planned between now and then.