Bryan's Running Blog

Good work, was this on the track? Maybe a little more warm-up before diving into the speedy mile might help get the body temperature up and the blood flowing a bit more, especially if you did it in the morning.

Very close. It looks like your goal will soon be accomplished. Don't hurt yourself. Like Chad and Sasha have mentioned, it's important to warm up. I'd jog a minimum of 1/2 miles before and a couple miles after (time allowing). It would probably only help your time.

I got on a treadmill the other day and got up to 12 miles per hour for one quarter (5 min pace) and it was killing me. It used to be very easy back in high school. I could maintain it for a few miles back then; not now! Age and weight gain can really change one's realities. I'd like to get me speed back in order though. Your fighting to accomplish this speed goal motivates me to want to work harder for greater speed.

Bryan - in the mouth of two or three witnesses shall every word be established. You need a thorough warm-up before running 5:00 pace. I believe you would have run 4:53 if you had properly warmed up.

Jog 2-3 miles, do 4-8 100 meter strides in 17-18 seconds, then do the mile. And remember to cool down at the end.

Thanks for the good advice. Yes, it looks like I need to warm-up longer. I was planning to jog home, but I was too tired -- I ended up walking the mile home. No, this wasn't ran on a track, but on a street in my neighborhood. This creates a couple of potential problems: 1. I'm not sure exactly what is one mile. I've measured the distance using both my car and my bicycle odometer. The two disagree by about 10 yards, so I've been going by the longer of the two (the car). 2. My mile has a gradual downhill stretch and ends with a gradual uphill stretch. My altitude at the finish may be slightly lower than at the beginning. So my thought has been to run sub-5 both directions. However, I probably just ought to go to the track one of these days. A fellow in my church congregation was an All American runner for the University of Florida and apparently ran a sub 4 minute mile. He's not in that shape now, but he says he can run sub 5 still. Maybe I'll get him to pace me. In any case, my goal was to run a sub-5 minute mile by the end of the year, and I'm almost there. Sasha, when you and I were running back together at BYU, you once paced me on the track to break the 5 minute mile mark. Do you remember that? I ran exactly 5 minutes that day also.