Monday, May 07, 2012

20 Before 30: Update 3 - One Minute Down, One More Minute to Go


I’ve been exhausted lately, due to the fact that I never go to bed early enough but more so that I’ve been overworking my body with running and bike commuting. On Saturday, I did my scheduled 6 mile run but instead of running the scheduled 4 miles on Sunday, I reduced it to 3. Sure I only subtracted a mile, but taking it down to 3 mi allowed me to do a 3 mi “speed test.” 

With my overall goal of running a 5K under 20 minutes, running a 3 miler (just .1 mi short of a 5K) is a thermometer of my progress. Back in February I ran the same 3 mile loop, in the same direction as I did on Sunday. My overall time then was 25:10, a pace of 8:23 per mile. On Saturday my time was… (drum roll please)… 21:48, a per mile pace of 7:16. I’ll admit that the notes in my running log show that the 3 mile run back in February wasn’t run as hard as I did my run on Saturday, but still. That’s a one minute per mile progression. I’m pretty pumped. I’m also excited that I’m now within a minute of the per-mile pace to break the 20 minute, 5K barrier. That time is 6:26 per mile. I don’t want get too cocky with so far yet to go to reach that fast pace, but with my 27 ½ “birthday” having just past at the end of April, I feel like I will easily run a sub-20 minute 5K before I turn 30.

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