Running a Mile
1 min read
Today I am running my first mile race. It’s a low key event put on by some friends and more to see how fast we can run one. I’ve never raced a mile so not sure how to approach the race but I want to run it as fast as I can.
A mile is not a terribly popular distance in Australia, with metric being our measurment system we very rarely refer to miles. We run kilometres and pace in min/km.
Hicham El Guerrouj went 3:43.13 in 1999 for the world record holding 2:19 min/km. I won’t be that fast. To break the magical 4 min mile you need to be running at 2:29 min/km. It won’t be that fast either.
So a 5 minute mile seems easy then doesn’t it. Umm no, you still need to hold 3:06 min/km for 5 minutes. no easy feat but not unachievable for a runner of my calibre. So I found a race predictor on the internet and based on my age and most recent 5km time it predicts i’ll run a mile 5:11.
Well the race is tonight and I’m looking forward to seeing how i go. Keep an eye on my twitter feed for an update on my first mile race tonight. Whatever happens it should be fun.
Good luck on your one mile race tonight!!
Thank you.
The race predictor on the internet I found was very accurate. I ran the mile in 5 min 12 sec yesterday. Looking forward to the next time I get a crack at a distance like this. The challenge of running shorter races is still there, just different from a longer race.