Valley Forge Run - 45:04

I lost my Nikeplus :( Hopefully I'll be able to find it...

So today I had my best Valley Forge run, just a bit over 45 minutes flat, or 9 minute miles. My goal for this race was 42 minutes, so I have 3 more minutes to shave off...

First Three Valley Forge Runs

So I've run the actual race path 3 times now, with some varying success. Today was my best time at 45:45. Hopefully I can bring this down to the 42 min I need in the 5-6 weeks I have left...

4.0 Mile Run - 02/27/08

Best run yet! I'm 100% over that cough I had, and my time shows it. I had my fastest pace yet (well tied with another run for my fastest) and my longest distance, so I'm declaring this my best run yet. I was very happy with this run, even if I was a little more out of breath at the end then I'd like to be. For the record, I walk about 2.5 laps of the roughly 50 laps it takes to complete 4 miles at Bally's, or about 4%. When I started running the track I was walking 3 laps in 36 or about 8.33%, so I've cut my walking time in half while increasing distance, all in a little over two weeks.

4.0 Mile Run - 02/25/08

I'm about 99% over that cough. This is my second 4 mile run, but the first one I was coughing pretty badly that day and had a 8:40 min pace, which I was very disappointed in. My goal for this run was an 8 min pace which I missed by 4 seconds, but given it's only the second time running this far, not too bad...

3.5 Mile Run - 02/15/08

Woohoo! I did the 3.5 mile run in sub 28 minutes. I still have a cough, and my lungs felt like they were on fire the entire run, even from the very start, but I persevered and finished in a pretty solid time. I was also able to delay my first walking break until a little after the 2 mile mark, which is the further I've been able to run without a break.

3.51 Mile Run - 02/13/08

This is a significant run for me as it is the further I've ever run. My goal was to run this at an 8 minute pace, which as you can see, I missed by 5 seconds. However, in my defense I have a slight cough and I was out late last night and the night before and am running on virtually no sleep. Normally it's my legs that give out on me during these runs, but this time it was my lungs. This leads me to believe it was my cough that did that, and if it wasn't for that, I think I could have done much better...maybe, who knows. That being said, I'm going to now try to run 3.5 mile runs for 2 weeks and then bump it up to 4 miles sometime before March 1st, or on March 1st at the latest.

3.11 Mile Run - 02/11/08