Today was a good day in my inexorable progress towards running a six minute mile. I ran the 1.1 miles to Original Muscle Beach at 6:45 pace. This is quite a leap from my previous record pace of 6:53 a week ago, which in itself was a huge leap from the record before that, 7:02, set just five days before that.

My “training program” is approximately:
Monday – 2 x 1.1 miles, divided by 30 minute low intensity circuit training
Tuesday – Day off
Wednesday – 2 x 1.1 miles, divided by 30 minute low intensity circuit training
Thursday – 3.2 miles
Friday – 2 x 1.2 miles, divided by 30 minute low intensity circuit training
Saturday – 3.2 miles
Sunday – Day off

So really I don’t have a training program. I just do the runs a few times a week, and each time I try to do the best time possible. This is not what the books recommend, but it seems to be working so far. I think this is what is referred to as “low hanging fruit” – I’ve led a sedentary life for so long that my mile time started out so slow that it was inevitable I would make great strides initially. I still don’t feel like I’ve reached any kind of plateau, but I will, and that will be the time for a more structured training program.

For reference, I’m 40 years old, 6’2″ and 160lb. I’ve been running about nine months. I was sat a desk with very little exercise for 15 years before that.