My 2009 Goal

[TRACY WILLIAMS]

I finished my 1st 5k in 43:24. By the end of 2009, I would like to cut my 5K finish time by 5 minutes (going from about a 14-min mile to less than a 12.5-min mile). My training has been hampered lately by a stubborn case of bronchitis and allergies. But until my doc tells me to quit running, I will work on achieving this goal.

[TRACY WILLIAMS]

Now I've been running for awhile, I thought I would re-visit this goal. I have ran several 5Ks to date (the last one 8/29) and I've started training for a 10K in November. When I originally wrote this goal, I was only considered running 5Ks. Now that I'm increasing my distances, I am focusing on an overall time improvement - still less than a 12.5-min mile.

With all that said, I have seen an improvement in my overall time. I ran an 8K yesterday (9/5/09) and my time was 1:08:00.37 (a 13.6 min-mile)! I'll still run a few more 5Ks this year just to see if my time improvement will be consistent across my races (regardless of the distance).

(PS: It seems the bronchitis let me with allergies, but they seemed to have been more problematic during the spring. Hopefully the fall season was be as much of a problem.)

[TRACY WILLIAMS]

With this year rapdily coming to a close, I thought I would check my progress again. My last 5K (Race for the Cure 5K - 10/10/09) I ran 41:53, a 13:30-min mile. My longest run to date was today (11/7/09), Vulcan Run 10K - 1:27:56. I must admit that I didn't do as much training as I needed and I think my time showed it. There are few more races remaining in this year that I plan to participate in, so I plan to re-start my training again to see if I can reach that magic 12.5-min mile :)!