To Your Marks

I am cheating. One isn't supposed to start their New Year's Resolutions until, well, New Year's, but I need a head start. Some might call it a lack of confidence, but I call it an insightful realization that I need at least 53 weeks to accomplish what most can do in 52. So I started today, a week early.

Today's number is 2:56.

I've been running off and on for the last 35 years or so, sometimes competitively, sometimes just for fun. Currently I'm running in the Club Northwest Winter Grand Prix series, a half dozen two mile runs over the winter. I am not winning, by the way. In fact, last week I improved to 106th place out of 153. I'm just a runner, just a guy, and the times for my longer runs have really suffered in the last few years.

My shorter races, however, have remained reasonable, at least until a couple of years ago.

I ran track in high school, though not diligently and not particularly well. My best mile in high school was a 5:06 (I think), and my best 880 was 2:15, give or take. Yes, those are imperial distances. We hadn't yet advanced to  using the metric system.

As recently as June 2007 I ran an 800 in 2:21 at a Club Northwest All-Comers meet.

My goal this year is to break 2:20 in an 800. I haven't broken 2:20 since high school. I want to break 2:20 one more time.

So around the beginning of November I started working out on the track again, trying to condition myself to run fast. Now it's time to start taking the training a little more seriously. This morning I woke up, did a brief warmup, then ran an 800 as hard as I could.

I ran it in 2:56.

That's nowhere near 2:20, but it is easily the best 800 I've run in the last two months, 15 or 20 seconds faster than anything else I've done, so I feel like I'm headed in the right direction. And it's far, far better than my two mile times.

So now it starts in earnest. Stay healthy. Work hard. See what happens.