MY FIRST 8 MIN MILE, at least in recent years

[Q.]

Well, sorta...

PREFACE: I'm 6'3" tall, about 205, probably 12% or so body fat... and 50 years old. Speed has never been my forte, in fact, my grandfather said I ran like a dry creek when I was a kid. I used to run regularly but quit when I was about 44 because I thought I needed to preserve my knees (also played basketball 3-4x/wk which was the real problem). I started back at it last year and have only been doing it hit and miss since... not extremely regular or programmed.

TODAY: I ran on the indoor 1/8 mile track. My intent is to improve my pace for a 1 mile run. I have no interest in plodding along for miles and miles again. I stretched and then jogged my first lap to get warmed up. There's a clock over the track so, as I passed under it, I checked the time and ran the second one at a sub-8-min-mile pace. The next one, I slowed down and then, when I reached the clock again, I picked it up again. I did this for 17 laps (last one to warm down). It's kind of an interval training approach which is good in general but, like I said, I also want to improve my pace.

In the end, I did a mile in under 8 minutes but it just wasn't continuous. I have used a similar approach on the outside track but haven't ever tried it where I have the clock there to verify my pace until today.

I'm hoping that, by using this approach, I can work up to a 8 minute mile and then start working on two miles at that pace. I have been lifting four days a week and play racquetball on one so I'm giving up one day of weights to work on this.

What do you think of this approach? I'm afraid that I'm not spending enough time running to make improvements very fast but I don't want to drop any more days of lifting. The only option I see is to keep doing what I can, when I can, but I think I'll only have one day a week on the track.

Sometimes, not always, I do have enough energy left to jog in the evening around the neighborhood. However, after a good day in the weight room during lunch (esp squat days), I'm sometimes too spent to accomplish much. Other things have recently made it pretty tough to squeeze it in even on the good days.

Any thoughts on this? Stay with this approach or just do the mile run and gradually improve my time? This holds my interest a lot more than plodding along and hoping for the best.

[Kaiser]

I did this a few years back; wanted to break the 6 minute mark for the first time since 6th grade. It was a very hard 6 weeks to get there. I was running indoor on a 1/10 mile track, so that probably slowed me down some.

My technique, which I read somewhere, was to start at 1/10 of a mile at the 6 minute pace or better and keep adding tenths until you were doing the mile in under 6. Actually, the technique calls for you to increase your 1/4 mile time, then to go to 1/2 mile, but since I was working on a tenth of a mile indoor track, I broke it down that way. Note that I am naturally a sprinter, and so give me 100, 200 meter sprints....the mile is a long distance for me to go that fast.

Well it took me a full six weeks of training twice a week to do this, but at the end I was able to do 1 mile in 5:56, three seconds faster than I did it when I was 11 years old. And this was a quarter century later, so I was pleased. At least after the nausea passed. [img]smile.gif[/img]

[Q.]

K,

So you saying that the training technique should work, right?

I'm not sure about "I was able to do 12 mile in 5:56" but I think I get the idea.

Hey, in the end, it's not the destination but the journey that's important. If I'm making continual progress, that's what's most important!

Thanks!

[Kaiser]

Opps. Corrected the typo. Thanks.

I do not know if it will work, but I can say that it worked for me.

[gobbla]

your speed work ought to be enough to get you through the 1 mile well enough. the approach that I'm going on (and it may very well be wrong) is to work both all angles as hard as you can...but at different times.

sprint days...increasing your vo2 max while pushing your muscles at least or harder than your goal pace in order to get used to running hard.

long days...a mile or so further than what you're going for, to get used to the endurance so you're used to running for longer than you have to (say at a 30 per mile slower pace than your goal)

normal days...run like you're shooting for your time.

but that's just me and is based solely on the odd mental process that is my brain and should not be confused with anything that makes sense. [img]smile.gif[/img] I think your plan will work just fine, but throwing in some longer runs might get you there a little quicker.

[Q.]

Thanks, gobbla, that does make sense. It's all good when it comes to training!