Journey to a 15 minute 5k

It’s been a little over 2 years since my last post. A lot has happened in 2 years. We had our second child, new jobs for both my wife and I. I’m sure we’ve had many more changes. I plan to start blogging again. This go around I’m planning to focus more on my fitness and running. So lets start…

The last several years I put on weight, a lot of weight. I began to get annoyed and didn’t want to buy fatter fat clothes. My weight peaked around 230 pounds in December 2013. I started eating better and working out January 2014. You could call it a New Year’s resolutions, but I think it’s more of a life style change.

I’ve always enjoyed running so the majority of my workouts are running with some added weight training. Early on running was hard because I couldn’t go as far or fast as I thought I should be able to. After a few months I had issues with shin and calf pain that caused me to shift to the stationary bike for a few weeks. As the months have gone by I’ve dropped weight and improved my endurance and speed. This morning my weight 188 pounds. A much healthier weight and I still have to lose more before I will be back in running shape.

In January I was only able to run 1.5 miles 2 or 3 times week at about a 10 minute pace. Which was extremely frustrating because I remember my running from 13 years ago. 8 months in I’m running a little over 30 miles a week and even on my easy long runs at a sub 9 minute pace. I’ve been focused on building up my miles for a strong base. To date my longest run as been a 10.3 miles. I’m feeling good about my milage and I’m planning to start doing speed work in a few weeks to improve my speed.

Here are some of my self timed results all done in the last 2 week:
100 meter – 13.17
200 meter – 32.14
400 meter – 68.45
1 mile – 6:23 (on the trail using RunKeeper)

I’m happy with my current results but I’m ready to push for more. I plan to post at least weekly to sum up the weeks training. As this posts title suggests long term goal is to run a 15 minute 5k. This blog will document either my success or my failure. Which do you think it will be?

I began programming in C++ when I was in college. Odd for a business major, but hey I am a Dork. After college I got a job as System Administrator. As a System Administrator I was in charge of web administration. My journey as a PHP web developer had begun. Since that time I have gained an in depth knowledge of CSS, Javascript, XML and MySQL. With changes and advances to technology I have also began learning AJAX. I started Blue Fire Development to do freelance work in my spare time.

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