5:02 mile in 8:19

Those times yesterday were what I guess I’ll refer to as unofficial. I was running around a park and I only measured the distance using the mapping tool at http://www.usatf.org/routes/map/. It told me that the distance I was running is really 0.24 miles, not 0.25 miles. But hey you gotta work with what you have. And if a 0.24 mile course is right outside my house then I’ll use it and I’ll call it an almost quarter mile.

Today I ran on an actual Track so I think these times are more accurately described as semi-official.

Same deal as yesterday. 400 meters, 4 times. A little slower, but with less rest in between. I aimed to run at a 5-minute mile pace for each quarter, resting for one minute in between. It was harder than I expected. But that might have been on account of the 300 feet of stairs I climbed during the 15-minute “warm-up” run to the track.

400 meters in 75 seconds.

Rest 1 minute 6 seconds.

400 meters in 73 seconds.

Rest 1 minute 3 seconds.

400 meters in 76 seconds.

Rest 1 minute 8 seconds.

400 meters in 78 seconds.

5 minutes and 2 seconds of running, 3 minutes and 17 seconds of rest. I want to do 5 minutes and 0 seconds of running with 0 minutes and 0 seconds of rest. That seems kind of impossible right now. That mile today was really, really rough. Especially the second 100 meters of the first two 400s and the last 200 meters of the last 400. I was going as fast as I could but it didn’t feel fast at all.

I’ve never really cared about this before – being fast. I’ve always had a kind of “it is what it is” attitude with regard to how fast I can run. But for some reason I’m like Obsessed with this idea of finding that speed somewhere. I wonder where it is.