1st Magic Mile Run Complete

Week 4 concluded last Thursday with the completion of my 1st Magic Mile run.  This involved a slow one mile warm up followed by a further mile running as hard knowing after the mile that I couldn't have run more than a football field at the same pace, then a slow jog to complete the mileage required for that day.  The intention for subsequent Magic Mile runs is that I will aim to run faster than in the previous one.

Then once I've completed 4 of the Magic Mile runs I can start to better predict my race performance.  To do this I eliminate the slowest run, average the other 3 and then use Jeff Galloway’s web based race prediction calculator (here).  For example, using the time for this Magic Run (8:14 min/mile) would give me the following predictions:

Distance	Pace (min/mile)	Predicted Race Time	Current Personal Best
5km pace	08:47	27:14	27:30
10km Pace	09:28	58:42	01:02:30
½ Marathon Training Pace	11:42	2:33:19	-
½ Marathon Pace	9:53	2:09:26	02:25:15
Marathon Training Pace	12:42	5:32:50	-
Marathon Pace	10:42	4:40:62	-

Incidentally, my fastest 1 mile time recorded to date is 7:45 min/mile so it will be interesting to see if I can get closer to that in future Magic Miles, I was slightly injured (pulled chest muscle) when I completed this Magic Mile although it didn’t really affect my run, so it will be interesting to see how close I can get to this record in subsequent Magic Mile runs over the next few months.

So, for the distances I’ve already completed, apart from the Half Marathon pace/times they are not far off, so it will be interesting over the course of the Run-Walk-Run Marathon Schedule as to how close I get to all these times.  It certainly would be nice to achieve all those times especially for the 10k and Half Marathon distances.

However, I doubt I could better those times for 5K/10K much as the Magic Mile has reaffirmed my opinion that I just don’t like running fast.  When running the 1^st Magic Mile, my breathing was all over the place, more difficult to control, my chest felt tight, my asthma flared up so I was glad when it was over as I could settle back into my 'normal' pace for the remainder of the run.