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.