Mick West

I think I’ll try to run a six minute mile this year. Today I just did an official 7 minute mile. (The GPS claims I did 1.13 miles at a 6:53 pace). Since I started running last October, I’ve knocked two minutes off my pace. This means I only have to knock off another 53 seconds in the next seven months. Seems possible, with a bit of effort.

The Seven Minute 5K means run a 5K at seven minute pace, meaning 3.11 miles in 21:46. This also seemed rather ridiculous when I first ran that distance. It took me 32 minutes. But now I’m down to a 7:39 pace, which is around 23:30.

These are not unrealistic goals. Lot’s of fairly casual runners can do a 5K in around a 7 minute pace (see the first 220 runners (10%) in this race, including one 68 year-old. I’d place in the top 20%). The winner of the race, Chris Chisholm, is 42, and did a 4:59 pace. Anyone of reasonable fitness can do a 7 minute pace, simply by improving their time one bit at a time. That’s what I’m going to do.

I think the seven minute 5K is actually going to be easier than the six minute mile. Nobody really runs the mile for fun either, so I won’t get the pleasure of beating anyone but myself.

A seven minute 5K is 21.44. I suspect that as soon as I do that, I’ll be wanting to do a 20 minute 5K.

There’s two runs I do now, a run to Original Muscle Beach (OMB) and back, with a workout between the runs, and then a run that’s 3.2 miles, slightly over a 5K.

The OMB run is 1.1 miles, so I treat it as a mile run, and judge the run by my mile pace. I started doing this run back in October 2006, and the first time I recorded was 10:34. Actually the first time I tried the run I actually did not make the full mile, and had to stop half-way with legs hurting.

Now (May 2007), I’ve got my time down to 7:57, which is about a 7:13 mile pace. I just need to knock it down to 7:42 in order to have run a seven minute mile. I’m very confident I’ll be able to hit this target within a few weeks.

I’ve had on and off problem with my knee. The worst problem seem to come if I miss running for anything more than a few days. Like when we went to vacation to Japan, and Hawaii, both times I had horrible painful runs the first time I did it on returning. Yet now if I run every day, I don’t seem to have any problems. Running almost seems to act as a pain killer. My left arm was giving me problems from OMB workouts, but after todays run it seemed fine.

The 5K run has also improved a lot. I did my first 5K run in 32:59 – had to walk a little bit. The next time I ran the whole way in 32:12 (Nov 12th 2006). Then the very next day Holly challenged me to a race I I did it in 29:52. By February I was down to 27:29, and three days ago I got to 25:30, a pace of 7:56. My goal for the year was pretty much to do 5K at a 8:00 pace, and I’ve already done that. I’ll probably aim at getting my run under 25 minutes, then 24, 23, 22 …. Eventually I’d like to run 5K at 7 minute pace and do a single mile in 6:30. Maybe next year.