August 2021: Update #2 on my 5 Minute Mile Goal

This is the 2nd monthly update on my goal to run a 5 minute mile (see post here). I’ll keep track of my training and progress here.

Training

I’ve been running about 100 miles per month for the past two months, and I’ve seen my mile time improve by about 10 seconds per month. I’ve been trying to do about 30 miles per week, but I usually have one week where I cut down the mileage a lot to recover. The humidity and heat has been sapping my energy a lot. I can’t wait until the cool fall weather gets here.

Progress

I’m sticking to the plan of consistent training, but it’s hard work. It’s hard to see the progress day by day, but when I zoom out, I see that I’ve improved my mile time by over 20 seconds in two months. Two months isn’t even a lot of time. I hope to get under a 6 minute mile in the next 2-3 months as the weather gets cooler.

Things to work on

I’ve been trying to do exercises to work on strength training. I don’t have access to a gym, so I’ve been doing body weight exercises. I do pushups, situps, and squats. Sometimes I try lunges too.

I’ve been having a little pain here and there in certain parts of my feet and legs that comes and goes. I try to listen to my body and back off on the training if it starts to hurt. I’m getting older, and I don’t want to injure myself.

Here’s my progress for this month. I didn’t take any other splits this month yet other than the mile.

Tracking progress by VDOT
Here’s a VDOT table, another way to track running fitness.
As of the end of August 2021, I’m at a VDOT of around 46. I’ll need to get up to a VDOT of 60. I’ve read that, with consistent training, one can expect to increase VDOT by 1 roughly about every 6 weeks. According to this calculation, it will take a minimum of 17×6 weeks, or 102 weeks. That’s about 2 years at a minimum.

Photo credit: Pixabay

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