Not 100% intended as a brag, but more intended as an example of what can happen if you put in some miles.

I joined RunningAHEAD back in the spring of 2012 working to try to go sub 2 hours on a HM.  I joined too late to do much good on my training for the HM, but still managed to pull it off and have tried to follow people's advice on this forum for the most part ever since.

Yesterday I had a nice confidence boosting run, beautiful evening, running with a friend, stars aligned, etc. and had a nice MP Tempo run where I ran 9 miles at goal marathon pace which ended up being a 7:51 average pace.  We carried on a conversation during the run, but I wouldn't consider it to be an easy run, more of a moderate run.  Really nice run.

I posted it on the Low HR forum on a thread that doesn't get much attention and noticed that I had posted the exact same workout there a little under a year ago where I wasn't able to maintain an 8:00 pace, dropped it to 8:15 pace after 4 miles then bailed on mile 9 and ran it easy.

I went back some more in the thread where I had been talking about interval workouts and saw some of my old interval workouts and went all the way back to where I had mentioned my first ever interval workout back in March of 2012.

I started running back in 2011 and logged a whopping 262 miles that year which at the time I was actually pretty proud of.

2012 was the year I ran my first half marathon and I killed the mileage that year (I thought at the time anyway) with 1,357 miles logged.

2013 was my first marathon and I really did put in some mileage that year with 2,016.6 miles logged, which is my PR for yearly mileage.

2014 I broke my collarbone and spent 3 weeks in a row hunting and between those 2 things my mileage suffered with only 1,851 miles logged.

2015 I'm back on track and logging some good miles so far this year.

With that long narrative, I get down to what I consider the results of those miles.

On 3/14/12 I did my first ever interval workout.   8 X 400m intervals on a track with 400m recoveries.  I was running them on a track and running them all out with my wife running a stop watch and calling out my splits and my 5 year old son cheering me on.  I was wearing a HRM and hitting 97% of max HR at the end of the fast intervals.

My average split pace for those 8 - 400m intervals was 8:32 per mile!  At pretty much maximum effort.

I just ran 9 miles fairly easily at 7:51 pace per mile!  At a moderate effort.

It is just mind boggling to me that I am now able to run 9 miles at a moderate effort 30 seconds per mile faster than I was able to run 400m intervals not even 3 years ago!

I wasn't completely out of shape when I did those intervals either, I logged some decent miles in December 2011 and January and February 2012 before running those.

I'm sure there are lots of folks who could log the same miles I have over the last few years and be way faster than me, but I'm pretty pumped at my improvement.

Just thought I would share.  Nathan

Nice, Nathan.  Very nice!

It's amazing what you can do applying effort over time and not putting limits on yourself.  Job well done, and the book's not even finished yet.

Thank you for posting this.  I'm only a bit over a year into running seriously, and I despair a LOT because I'm slow and I wonder if I'll ever improve.  Then I realize I ran only 900 miles last year, and I'm not anywhere near my potential, most likely.

 

Anyhow, awesome progress.  Seriously cool.

I started out after a few months of running with around 27min 2-mile race.  Sixteen years later I ran a 10K in 30:57 (sub-5 mile pace).  It's all about consistent effort over time.  Keep your nose to the grindstone and you will be rewarded.

npaden----SWEET!

That's pretty amazing improvement.

Goes to show the value of a good log is too, and the happy benefits of a retrospective.

Keep truck'n.

Thanks everyone.  It is very nice to see the improvement in black and white.

Not sure why that workout last week made such a big impression on me, but my race times have also improved and probably are more of an indicator of my true progress.

6/9/12 - My first 10K - flat course but a little windy - 54:15 for an average pace of 8:44.

9/13/14 - My current PR 10K - flat course, a little nice weather - 43:58 for an average pace of 7:05.

Kind of hit a plateau there for a while but things seem like they are picking up again.  Shooting for a 7:29 pace half marathon as a goal for 2015.  Think it should be a done deal if I can get a good race lined up and some decent weather.

Very cool. And exciting. And you are just getting started!