16 weeks of training for 22 minutes and 37 seconds

And I am happy with that. For the most part. I started a 5k training program through www.runnersworld.com 16 weeks ago. This is the second consecutive training program I've done through that website. The first program I started last spring for a 5k I did in July. At that 5k in July, I got my best time that I had ever gotten for a 5k: 23 minutes and 35 seconds. Since I did so well at that 5k, I decided to set up another program. I didn't have a particular 5k in mind to train for, so I set the program for the maximum number of weeks that I could, and that was 16 weeks. I stuck with this program the best I could for the past 16 weeks. I got up early to fit in my run, when I normally would've been able to sleep in. I did miss one week when Josh was in the hospital, but I bounced back quickly from that. I ran sprints I didn't think I could run. I ran up to 11 miles at a time on my long run days. It was hard, but I guess that's what I get for putting the answer "very hard" to the question "how hard do you want to train?" when I set up the program.

And it paid off. I didn't have an actual 5k to run yesterday, so I went to www.mapmyrun.com to map out 3.1 miles around my neighborhood. And then I timed myself. My training program said that with all the training I've done, I should get a time of 22:07, which is a pace of 7:07 per mile. I'm a little sad that I didn't quite meet that goal. I got 22:37, which is a pace of 7:18 per mile. But, I am very happy that I beat my last 5k time of almost a full minute! That's good enough for me.

I will be taking this week off from running, and I have my next 5k training program set up to start next Monday. This new program says that in 16 weeks when I run my next 5k, I should be able to do it in 21:15, which is a pace of 6:50 per mile. Check back in after February 28th to see if I did that.