Employee 1.1's 17 year sub-5 streak is on the line. Can he break 5 today at age 32 with almost zero training?

Thanks for sharing and congrats on your own streak. 37 or 38 years is damn impressive. I hear you about it optimally being on a track, but given today was icy as hell I worked with what I had. It's just for me, so as long as it's a flat course sub-5, that's good enough for me. What I ran on today was basically an indoor track ...just good amount slower actually. I think every other year has probably been on an actual track, but I'd have to look back to check.

Why did I do this? Well, I did this today to keep the streak alive. As of early 2018 I was still trying to train and work towards "real" goals, so sub-5 happened naturally and easily as a product of that. But the last year and a half I've struggled with motivation and kind of took an unintentional break from running. The number of times I said, "This is the week I'll run everyday again" and then I just never got it done. From here I hope to get back in real shape and hopefully I don't have to pull a last minute stunt like this again at least until my 40s. But who knows what will happen, I never planned on getting this out of shape in the first place.

I measured a full mile (1609.3 meters). I walked it with my wheel and measured as closely to the Civic Center rail as I could. Actually running the thing we definitely had to go wider than that because of how sharp the turns were. Not to mention going around a couple of the walkers. We for sure ran it farther than I measured it. I knew that was going to be the case beforehand, but I figured that way we were definitely running at least a mile.

Craxy wrote:

Shoes - Adios 1? Could have done better.

Yes, good eye!

Bad Wigins wrote:

The guy has done "zero training" and you're talking about cutting him slack with treadmills and downhills? What's wrong with you?

Nobody should care about his streak if he can't be bothered to care about it either. In fact we should be rooting for him to fail.

Yeah, this reply is mostly fair. I'm certainly not proud of myself for giving up on running. I wish I could go back in time and say, "Steve, suck it up, you're going to hate yourself later." My 25 or 26-year-old self wouldn't believe I could be in such a bad way. But a lot of us who are a bit older probably have experienced this. Real world stuff, family, house, kids, money, etc. Stuff you bounced back from easily when you were a college kid can be a struggle later on in life. For me, I had to take time off for a surgery and then just never got back into it; burned out and fell out of love with running a bit. No excuses, just didn't have the fire.

So yeah, I should have never put myself in this position, but I did and I went for it anyway.

Can i get a "hi" pls? I want to break 5 for the first time ever some day (I'm about to ever my late 20s and ran in the mid 5 min range in HS). Very cool that you've been able to pull through!

Tell Wiggy to suck an egg. He’s just a bitter old man for some reason.

for the record, pt. 5: congrats once again, and i think running on what was probably a pretty slick surface (it looked like you had to adjust speed on turns a bit, or maybe you were just negotiating the wall/rail separating the seats) cost you seconds for sure. clearly the crowd/walkers did not understand the gravity of the situation either...

for my part, while there are numerous reasons why i've kept it going, willy wonka sums it up well when he said "a little nonsense now and then is relished by the wisest men"...

keep on keepin' on,

cush

Shocked to see the socal dude (not so) subtly make this about him. :-)

why no LRC kit?

Oh yeah... wrote:

Heck yeah you should. Because just like most of your opinions, no one cares about a 32 year old break 5 in the mile.

Let him do it on a bike or in a car, still no one will care. Keep banging the drum about shoes and being the old guy scream at clouds.

I repeat no one cares about this. You are, as always, annoying.

Clearly you did not ask everybody about this as I care very much

You should run it again in Jan 1 so you get the 18th year done early.

293 yards a lap in the Glens Falls Civic Center??? I’ve been there , it seems a lot shorter than that . Anyone independently measure it ? Sounds like marathon investigation needs to look into this .

Crooked Hillary wrote:

Soprano wrote:

Yeah, this reply is mostly fair. I'm certainly not proud of myself for giving up on running.

Tell Wiggy to suck an egg. He’s just a bitter old man for some reason.

Nope. I tell it like it is, and he knows it. But good on him for not cheating, assuming the distance was correct. Looked like a slippery surface, even.

rojo wrote:

His mile PB is 4:26.

Soprano wrote:

in September through November I've barely run (probably less than 10 times a month except for maybe November) and a lot of these "runs" have been 1 to 3 miles. My longest run since August is 36 minutes. No workouts, no strides. Here is December:

December 1-5: OFF

Dec. 6: ~300m jog

Dec. 7-13: OFF

Dec. 14: 30min

Dec. 15: 15min

Dec. 16: OFF

Dec. 17: 30min

Dec. 18: OFF

Dec. 19: 33min

Dec. 20-23: OFF

Dec. 24: 36 minutes w/ 2 strides

Dec. 25-28: OFF

Dec. 29: 2x400m workout on the road just to see if I could actually run 5minute pace (~4 miles total)

Dec. 30: Sub-5 mile???

Good job, man. My 1500 PR is nearly identical to your mile PR, but I don't think I could get anywhere near a sub 5 1500 off of that little training.

Much deserved congratulations for a solid effort!

Super slick polished concrete. Dusty kind of. I measured the first 200 and ran a stride to find pace and said to him "We might not be able to do this." Turns were sharp, and the surface sucked.

I'd guess on a good day outside, we better surface, Steve would be closer to 4:50ish.

Steve measured the day before. I ran with the wheel again during the warmup to double check marks. And if anyone knows Steve, he is a stickler, almost to the point of a jerk, about measuring correctly.

https://www.letsrun.com/news/2014/12/just-long-club-cross-country-course-really/

If this heartbreaking research from the 2014 Club Cross race isn't enough to prove it, I don't know what is.

Bad Wigins wrote:

Crooked Hillary wrote:

Tell Wiggy to suck an egg. He’s just a bitter old man for some reason.

Nope. I tell it like my bitter self interprets it, and he knows I’m just a bitter old man. But good on him for not cheating, assuming the distance was correct. Looked like a slippery surface, even.

Go for it man! I look at all the pros still running so well into their late 20s and early 30s (even mid to late 30s in some cases) and it reminds me you can still chase PRs as long as your body will let you. If sub-5 is your main focus, definitely look up some mile-type training plans to follow. Mile specific training is a lot different than what you might do to maintain general running fitness. No matter what, don't do what I did and not train for 1.5 years and then try haha.

There is only one LRC singlet and I think it's in Ben Rosario's possession at the moment. I thought about wearing an LRC t-shirt, but they fit me a bit tighter and I wanted something loose for the race.

It is shorter than that. I'm assuming you're basing 293 yards off of when I said it was about 6 laps to a mile earlier in the thread? Once around is a little over 250 meters (255.8 if I'm remembering correctly). So if you watch the video, that's why we had to do six laps and then about three quarters of a lap extra to finish the mile.

Soprano wrote:

Lasse666 wrote:

Not good, but to be expected. He was about 12 seconds off at 1200m and fading fast, so he bailed. Streak over.

This is a troll post, haven’t started yet. Going to try to stream it from the twitter account. Probably 10-15min. Posting this from the John.

Paying out those 2/1 odds

Agree treadmill would not count. But remember that the “advantage” of running on a treadmill at 0% grade is real only for about 7 minute pace or faster. At slower speeds, there is a declining advantage of little or no significance. This has been shown conclusively but the 1 or 1.5% grade compensation is only needed for the (relatively)) swift of foot. Hence I am happy to plod along at 0% inside and avoid the midwestern winters. I have gotten soft in my dotage.

Okay, that is believable . But if it was in the Glens Falls Civic Center and JG3 isn’t there it doesn’t count as a real sporting event.