Thanks jecht! I'm glad people are reading and enjoying this. I think it's good to have a reference for beginners who are actually serious about improvement. There are tons of resources for intermediate and advanced runners on here.
For beginners, people might be tempted to read reddit or similar places where there are tons of information for them, but the quality of advice tends to be very low and even counterproductive. Not that this is really an advice topic but at least it's a snapshot of one person's progress.
In any case I find it's very helpful for me to use this topic to stay motivated on a day-to-day basis. I feel like I have to share this stuff someplace to stay motivated, but no one IRL really cares so it's better to let it all out on here for me and keep it to myself IRL unless I'm talking with another runner.
I'm also excited to look back and reread this thread once I reach some of my goals to remind myself of everything it took to get there. While not exceptional, I am still really satisfied with my progress so far in overall fitness. I had started running about 1 year ago now. Last Memorial Day I was around a 30 minute all-out 5k. In those early stages I was doing run-walk for 1 hour every other day.
Sometime about a year ago, I think in early June, I remember the first time I had reached 6 miles in the hour, despite taking one or two walking breaks during the session. I weighed 194 lbs on that day (post-run weight) and was over 200lb recently before that with a big gut and a double chin, given my modest height. Now I'm 146lb, running 5km at sub-7 pace and do my easy runs and jogging recovery intervals faster than I could run all-out last year. Also stronger upper body than I was at 200, able to bench 1.5x my bodyweight and very close to OHP my body weight, goals which I couldn't have dreamed of reaching last year.
All that being said, the last few days have been a little rocky. Have been dealing with some lower back pain which seems to stem from a tight upper right glute. The pain is starting to get better today, but it was bothering me a lot over the weekend and prevented me from doing any serious running. Running didn't aggrevate the pain at all, and actually seeemd to alleviate it. Sitting down is the worst. Anyway, I didn't want to risk it by running hard. I'm hoping in the next few days I'll be back to 100%
5/27: 6mi @ 9:15
5/28: 5.7mi @ 8:48 - pain was pretty bad this day. It was supposed to be my 200s,300s,400s intervals day but I didn't want to chance it. I still did 10x200 around 6:20 pace just to get something in.
5/29:5mi @9:26
5/30 2mi @ 9:17// 4mi @ 8:38