It’s July 8, 2021. I’ve set a new goal to be able to run a 5 minute mile by 2025. Just as I tracked my $1M net worth goal progress every month, I’ll be tracking my monthly progress on my blog.
Most goals require two things: consistency and time. I set out to achieve a net worth of $1M in February 2016 and reached that goal in April of 2021. It took 62 months (time), and I tracked my progress every month on this blog (consistency).
Why a 5 minute mile?
Over the past few months, I’ve been thinking about setting a new goal. I didn’t want it to be a financial goal this time. I haven’t quite reached financial independence, but I feel comfortable enough with my finances to put more focus on other things.
Running has always been a part of my life. I watched some of the Track and Field Olympic Trials and was inspired to take running more seriously again. I’ve never been very fast, but I enjoy being outdoors and being able to explore places I normally wouldn’t go to. I wanted the goal to be challenging. I wanted it to be something I’ve never done before. I wanted it to be something I wouldn’t be able to achieve in one year but would be able to achieve in less than 5 years. At a minimum, I think this goal will take 2 years. If I’m consistent, I think I can do it in 2-3 years, but I know life doesn’t always go as planned.
How will I do it?
I will need to increase my weekly mileage slowly and safely (to avoid injury) to about 50-60 miles/week. I need to incorporate strides, interval training, tempo runs, and long runs, and a lot of easy miles into my training. I need to be consistent over time. I need to lose about 20-25 lbs to get to around 145-150 lbs. I will have to get to a higher fitness level than when I was in high school, when I was running cross country. I’ll track my monthly progress and try to do a 1-mile time trial every month to see where I’m at.
Where I’m at now
I just started running consistently again over the past month. I’ve worked my way up to about 20-30 miles/week. I did a 1-mile time trial a couple weeks ago and ran a 6:36 mile. When I was marathon training just over a year ago, I did a one mile time trial in 5:55 (I’ve lost a lot of fitness since then from being busy with work and kids). Back in high school, I was able to do a mile in about 5:30 or even a little faster, but never under 5 minutes. My baseline now is a 6:36 mile. I think it’ll be fairly easy to get to a 6 minute mile again. However, getting from a 6 minute mile to a 5 minute mile will be very, very challenging. I know this will take years.
Baseline – June 2021 – 1 mile time-trial (6:36)
Progress – I’ll be tracking progress of my PRs at some other distances as well, but my main focus will be the mile. You can also follow me on the Strava app (Daniel Lee, Fairfax, VA).
| Date | 400m | 800m | 1 mile (1609m) | 5k | Other |
| June 2021 | – | – | 6:36 (baseline) | – | – |
| July 2021 | 1:11 | – | 6:23 | 24:17 | 1k: 3:50 |
| August 2021 | – | 2:48 | 6:13 | – | – |
| September 2021 | – | – | 6:12 | – | – |
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Tracking progress by VDOT
Here’s a VDOT table, another way to track running fitness.
As of July 2021, I’m at a VDOT of around 43. I’ll need to get up to a VDOT of 60. I’ve read that, with consistent training, one can expect to increase VDOT by 1 roughly about every 6 weeks. According to this calculation, it will take a minimum of 17×6 weeks, or 102 weeks. That’s about 2 years at a minimum.