How fast can you run a mile?
Can you believe that I still don’t know how fast I can run a mile? Why would I even want to know this? I’m an endurance runner. Speed isn’t really something I need, but I like it! My running partner and I like to fit in a couple of months of speedwork before our fall racing season. We do this for a few reasons.
1. To get faster (duh!)
2. To gain confidence
3. It’s fun!!
Personally I think that the getting faster part is icing on the cake. Nothing brings out the inner kid in you like running fast and nothing boost your confidence like surviving a workout that make you puke a bit by just reading it off of your schedule. I also enjoy speedwork because it breaks the monotony. Instead of running 10-12 slow miles we throw some intervals, some mile repeats or some tempo miles in there and it makes it more interesting. That being said, you have to have something to base everything off of. If you know how fast you can run a mile then you can figure out how fast those 800′s or whatever type of interval you are running should be.
Running the mile is something that we have talked about doing for a while now, but we were having trouble fitting it into our schedules. Last Thursday we made the decision that Friday morning we were going to run the mile. It was a little spontaneous, and had I known that we were going to do that I would not have ran 14 miles Tuesday, 9 miles of hills on Wednesday, and another 14 on Thursday.
Friday morning I talked a couple of the speedier guys into pacing us through our mile, and we joked that anything under 8:00 would make us happy. We ran 3 miles slowly and a few strides to warm up, and then we were ready. I purposefully left my watch at home because I run faster when I run by feel. I wasn’t sure how to run the mile so I decided to treat it like any race and start off slower and then kick somewhere towards the middle. That’s what I did. My pacer called out the 400 and I kicked a little faster, 800, a little faster, and at 1K I went as fast as I could go until we stopped.
6:50
There’s my mile. I’m pleased with that. In retrospect had I kicked harder sooner I probably would have gone faster, but it’s just a baseline. All that really matters is how much fun I had while running that mile. It’s so refreshing to do something a little different and so rewarding to exceed your own expectations!
Just for laughs I plugged my mile into a race pace calculator. Check out how fast it says I can run the hundred in! Yes sir! Sponsors will be calling any day now. I’m holding my breath for that one for sure!!
