It’s not often I’ll have two posts in a row about my running progress, so cherish this moment. I measured out a loop near my house today, it came out to about 4.1 miles. It starts up a nice, steep hill. Most of the first mile and a half are all spent running uphilll. Then it drops down a hill for about half a mile. It then flatens out for about another mile or so. The last bit of distance (around a mile) is up a steady uphill grade.
Lisa and I set out this afternoon with the goal of pounding out 12 minute miles. We finished the first mile just shy of 14 minutes, about 2 minutes behind pace. The second mile marker came at 24 minutes…we made up nearly 2 minutes on the downhill. We hit the third mile marker around 39 minutes…3 minutes behind schedule. We ended up hitting the end of the run at around 53 minutes…5 minutes off the pace.
However, for both Lisa and I this was our first outdoor run in I don’t know how long. I’ve been running during the Abs Diet Challenge, but it’s all been treadmill running. Even more importantly, we completed the run without walking. All I know is I’m well on my way to making my goal of 1:30 in the Emeral Nuts 12k in March.