10k Training Journey: The Hard Cold Stats

This week I started working on a training plan to run in a hypothetical 10k in 12 weeks. The plan is from the Boston Athletic Association. I googled the plan and found it to be free and so - bam! I'm using it.

I am 6'4" and currently around 250 pounds. In October and November, my weight increased significantly as my training decreased. I just turned 40. My doctor said that I would be obese if I were not so muscular. Not sure how to take that...

And so, it is daunting to think about decreasing my mile time and increasing my strength and endurance in running. Through the pandemic though, there have been times where I have run 100 miles per month. Those months were by far the most miles run in my training.

My goal through this training is to decrease my mile time both in the easy training runs and in the overall race time. Right now, my easy run mile time is around 10'30" to 11' minutes. Yesterday, I pushed it a bit to run an average of 9'45" pace for 3 miles. I do not know what an all out mile pace would be but it wouldn't be less that 8'30" for sure. To put this into perspective, for my age group, to qualify for the Boston Marathon you have to run an average of 6'50" for an entire marathon to qualify.

The facts hurt... I am slow, slow, slow; not running at my full potential. There are reasons for this that I will share in upcoming posts. Largely, it has to do with previous approaches to training and running.

I selected the intermediate running plan for Level 2 from the B.A.A. making modifications as needed. Today is rest day!

There you have it. The cold, hard facts of where I am at right now on December 30, 2020.