Outside: 'How Our Totally Average Runner Broke the Sub-Five Minute Mile'

LOL, I had NO (zip, zilch, nada) foot speed.

 

PR 5:46 mile this morning.

 

1/2-mile pace of 5:29 this morning.

Inching my way there.

 

You are popping, man.

 

I love when I pop.

 

I always find it interesting how people enjoy running. I could play pretty high level basketball in a steamy gym for hours and never want out. But make me run a mile and it was fucking torture. I ran a 53 sec 440 in gym class junior year in 1979 wearing Chuck Taylors but never ran track after 9th grade because I hated running so much. I did run a 5K when i was in my early 40's just to see if i could. No idea what my time was but it wasnt that hard with all the other runners. Now I walk 4 or 5 miles a day and it doesn't suck.

 

Finally getting back into jogging (and swimming) after a spring full of weed-pulling and excuses. No sub-five-minute miles, but I've managed to jog the first couple miles of a three-mile loop, walk a bit, then finish. Legs hurt like hell the next couple of days, though, and it's a fairly flat course.

@Batman: Swimming a series of one-minute 100s is strong work. But you're right about hitting the limit of what you can do. My daughter did the 500 when she was on swim team, and was thrilled to break the state-qualifying time of 6:30 early in the season. But despite regular practice, she just couldn't get much below that.

As for me, I swim around in lakes a bit during the summer. Flip turns in a pool = no can do!

 

The amazing part is, once you get to your level it doesn't take a lot of work to get back there no matter how long it's been. I haven't swam a lap in four years, but could probably jump in the pool right now and belt out one good 35-second 50. When I dove into the Masters swimming scene for a while that last time, it had been 17 years since I did a serious lap. Within two or three months I felt like I was ready to compete without embarrassing myself.
And the people who were fast enough to swim in college will always be faster than I could ever be.
Freaks.

 

You just needed some coaches from Winona State to properly motivate you.

 

Is Dick on "self-imposed hiatus" again? I want to tell him about the god awful 10K I ran on the Fourth. Ninety-degree heat, insane humidity, punishing hills. I was a full minute off my usual mile splits. The girlfriend asked afterward if I wanted to know my time and said "Nah it will just make me depressed."

 

Not the mile or official, but ran a 5K in a PR 19:33 this morning. (6:18 pace.)

Current mile PR stands at 5:46. Last time out I fell short, 5:50.

 

Ran the mile in 5:44 this morning, a PR by two seconds.