40% and still moving!

This challenge has been an interesting experience so far. It's gotten me out the door for a runs when I had absolutely no desire to do so. It's made me run more time and distance than I've ever done on a monthly basis. Luckily it's gone well, hasn't left me injured, and has me running faster than before.

Back in the day (before 12/1/07) when I went out for a 4-5 mile steady run, I'd pace myself around 8:45-9:00/mi to keep my HR around 155. If I wanted to go a little faster I could, but that'd leave me dogged. Yesterday I went out for one of those runs, 4.4 miles, and averaged 7:45/mi with an avg. HR of 156.

More really is MORE.

Now for the bad news:

My biggest month of running in history, and I'm only in 8th place in my AG! Now, 8th place isn't so bad, until you realize I only have 16 people to compete against...hmmm. What to do? Talk Tim into heading out to Palos with me today. He's a much better runner than I am, so hopefully he'll drag me along for 6-8 miles or so. That'll help me make up some time!

The thing that really kills me about this whole challenge is that I am averaging slightly over 40 minutes and 4.9 miles EVERY DAY for the last 36 days. That's a huge jump for me, and I'm still lagging behind!

Here is my AG standing as of this AM:



Here you can see the top ten overall (out of about 190) based on number of runs. I'm sitting at #9 on this chart, after this weekend I hope to jump up a spot or two:



Here's to finishing the first half of this challenge this week!