Magic Mile

Lisa is still in the hospital. She is doing well but life is real complicated right now between taking care of dogs and cats, shuttling back and forth to the hospital to get stuff she needs, dealing with medical insurance and the like.

I had a Magic Mile scheduled for my first Sunday of 2014. I was feeling a lot of trepidation going into it, because I knew I was going to be embarrassed by the results. Even though my injured knee is better, it is still limiting me as to what I can do. Still the mile needed to be done. It is what really is going to tell me what I can do. I really struggled over whether to do it or not, part Lisa worry and feelings of responsibilities, worry over the knee. In the end, Lisa shooed me out and encouraged me to take care of myself.

Yeah, she’s a keeper.

So I decided I did need a little stress reduction, so the Magic Mile was a go.

The Magic Mile

For those who don’t know, the Magic Mile was developed by former Olympian and now fitness guru Jeff Galloway. He believes that the Magic Mile is the best predictor of how fast you can run, and a great tool to figure out how fast you should run on your training runs. I’ve used it several times the last few years, and found it very helpful.  It not only can tell you what your running potential is if you are going to do a race (5K, !0K, Half Marathon and Marathon) but also what your fastest pace for your training should be.

It is a fact of running that a lot of people run too much, especially too fast on their daily runs, with the biggest mistakes on their long runs. Run too hard during the week, and you drastically increase your likelihood of getting injured. Considering I am just getting freed up from my injured knee fiasco, I am really into injury prevention right now. The Magic Mile gives me valuable information, as well as giving regular feedback on how I am progressing in my fitness.

The best thing about the Magic Mile is you don’t have to be marvelously fit to do this fitness test. You run if you can, jog if you can’t, walk if you have to and crawl if you have no other choice. So it does not matter your fitness level  so long as you can cover the distance of 1 mile. Of course, if all you can do is wheeze around the block one time, you are not ready for this yet.

How to do the Magic Mile

After a warm up you go one mile at a fast pace for you. it should be fast enough that when you finish the mile you should feel like you could have done another half to one lap more. You have strained some, but you are not ready to heave your guts.

The first time you do it you should be fairly conservative. Then repeat the time trial every few weeks to monitor your fitness and see if your running pace is improving or not. You should look to improve your Magic Mile time about 5-20 seconds each time you do it.

How Did I Do on My Magic Mile?

I went out what I thought was swift but conservative, but my knee was doing the talking. I quickly established that there was definitely a pace where I could run pain-free, then feeling strain on the knee, then some discomfort, then outright pain. I settled on a run where I felt a little bit of strain but no discomfort or pain. That level kept me shuffling around at a pretty slow pace, but there was no getting around the moment.

For a bit I felt that I could speed up some, and did, but the knee was starting to talk to me the last bit. I finished mostly pain-free and happy with my effort.

The watch said 11:57, for a mile??? My, that is – glacially slow.

But there is no denying that with the knee that is where I am at right now.

What Does the Magic Mile Tell You?

From the Jeff Galloway calculator I got the following information from my Magic Mile results is that my training pace for easy and long runs should be 17:32. Wow – not much more than a brisk walk.

Still, what are my goals? My goal is to be ready to start serious training in April. So this is about building my damaged body up right now so I can get there.

The stats:

Miles this week: 12

Miles for Jan: 10.44

Miles for 2014: 10.44