In order to determine whether you are meeting your goals, you have to take some time to look back at where you began.
Sometimes we forget to do this. We get stuck on “why am I not going faster, longer” rather than “where was I six months ago or a year at this time?”
I’ve been working on speed now for about a year, but I cut back when training for Disney. I believe this was a mistake. I think I should have kept it up despite the longer runs, incorporating one day a week of speed as I am doing now.
Thursdays are my fast day. I do a fast three – 3.5 miler and then follow that up with speed work. I try to do 4 miles total on Thursdays, with at least half a mile of sprinting off and on. So, I sprint a bit, walk a minute or two, sprint some more, walk a bit more, for half a mile.
I can see a great improvement in just the past few months with sprinting, as I am now able to get down into the low to mid six’s during the sprint and I am holding it longer and recovering shorter.
Today I did 3 miles at an 8:50 pace so in 26:32 in preparation for Saturdays 5K. I’m hoping to break 24, but probably more like 25. I’d love to do it in an average of 8:10 per mile.
Then I sprinted for a mile, off and on, with a 7 minute mile average for the entire mile. My lowest sprint was a 6:05. I didn’t have my watch telling me how many feet/tenths of a mile I was doing each sprint to check the average in comparison with the length; I need to figure out how to break that down next.
Looking back . . .
So how much have I improved? Well, let’s see . . .
In September of last year, which would have been six months ago, on the 24th of Sept I did 5 miles at a 9:50 pace! That’s shaving a freaking minute off each mile from today!
But okay let’s compare apples to apples . . . I did six miles on Monday of this week and my pace was 9:19 . . . so I shaved off about 31 seconds per mile from my time six months ago.
In March of 2008 – one year ago – I ran on the 24th and ran 6 miles at a 10:13 pace! There we have it, over one minute per mile cut from my runs, woo hoo! One minute twenty seconds to be precise!
So – speed work does help! Now when I say – wish I could do this in the low 8s – I can also say “But I used to do this in the 10s!”.
Where do I want to be? I want to be in the low 8s in six months. 8:10-8:20 would be a nice average to hit. I want that to be a norm, not a race speed.
I want race speed, 5Ks, in the 22s by next year.I want race speeds for 10Ks in the low 8s and longer distances in the mid 8s. I think that’s reasonable considering where I started and where I am now.
So, in one year (and in six months) I will be checking back to see how far I have come.
And what about you? Are you keeping track of your running goals and those that you meet? If not, why? If so, how are you doing?
Very nice! I’ve been stressing about my SLOW newbie pace for some time now. I’m averaging 12:00 minute miles now….and I just want to get to 10 minute miles ! Looks like it will be another year or so to even get to that point? *yikes* Please say that progress will be much faster for a newbie?!?! ;0) I’m so impatient….
I dont know if it will take you that long – I think if you really focus on speed, you can do it faster. I didn’t for a long time, I just ran for the heck of it and I didn’t care if it took me 11 minutes per mile! Now I want to go faster, and I have been improving, but it has been a focused effort to do so. You have to make one day a week your speed day,and then try to incorporate portions of that into your weekly workouts as well – esp. parts of your long runs, because it is easy to go fast for shorter distances but if you don’t [practice on the longer runs and you ever want to do distance racing it’s hard to pick up the speed without practice! Best of luck, let me know how it goes!