Mar 8, 2011

24 Laps, Lane 2

Accomplished a pretty significant personal milestone today. For the first time, I ran for an hour at a pace faster than ten minutes per mile. Specifically, I ran 6 miles in 58:38. I've done this before on a treadmill, but never outdoors.

Did it tonight after work at the track near my office. Went out at a solid pace, but without my Garmin (left it at home) I had runkeeper running on my phone, which was in my pocket, so I really couldn't monitor the pace. I estimated that I was going at about ten minutes per mile. I focused on consistency and never got tired enough to slow down.

It is true that consistency yields dramatic results. 70 days ago I had to struggle to run a single mile in 11:30. I could probably maintain 6 miles jogging nonstop at 12:30-13:00, and of course I could alternate running and walking all day long, which is how I accomplished 106 miles at ATY. But being able to maintain a hard pace like that for an hour was out of the question. It showed at the Manhattan Half Marathon in mid-January, where I went 11 minutes per mile for 9 miles but then slowed dramatically to finish.

Also the weight loss has undoubtedly made a difference too, however I continue to struggle in that regard. This morning's weigh-in was 292, and I'm only down about 3 lbs in the last two weeks, despite being mostly consistent with what I eat and sticking to the plan. Plateaus are really demoralizing. I'm certainly showing results, it's just that progress is going much slower than I would like.

I feel an intense amount of pressure to show much more dramatic results in the next 21 days. Umstead, after all, doesn't give me the 72-hour time limit that I had at ATY, and it's less than 4 weeks away.

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