Tom's Blog

where everything just clicked? I had one this morning.  For the past several months, I have been stuck at around a 9:45 - 10:00 pace. Some of it has been due to weight, and some of it has probably been a little mental, just not able to push through like I have in the past. That has all been improving lately. I have lost about 15lbs so far with about another 15 or so to go, and mental attitude toward running has gotten better.

Saturday I had a run of 5 miles. It was a good run, but nothing overly spectacular. My pace was an average of 9:49 with average HR of 161 and a max of 174. Like I said, nothing stellar there, just a good run. This morning when the alarm went off at 5:00 am, I wasn't overly excited about climbing out of bed, but after hitting the snooze once, I knew I would feel better if I did and regret it if I didn't, so I crawled out and got ready.

I arrived at the gym about 6:00 am and was on the TM by about 5 after. I started out with a quarter mile at 12 mpm warm up. after that I kicked it on up to 10 mpm. My HR was still only around 134 at the end of the first mile, and I was breathing entirely to easy for my norm, so I kicked the TM on up to a 9:00 mpm pace for mile 2. At the end of mile 2 my HR was still only 142, so for mile 3 I increased it on up to an 8:00 mpm pace. At the end of that 3rd mile, I had still only gotten to a 154 HR, and my breathing was barely elevated. Had I had more time, I think I could have easily done another mile at a 7:30 mpm pace if not better. I ended up finishing that 3 miles with an average pace of 8:49. That's my best average pace in well over a year.