Help me get an 8 minute mile so I can join the military

Congrats on loosing the 20lbs! (a 10 minute mile is not bad at all. You'll soon be doing it under 8.) How long do you have to get your time down?

When you do your 2 miles how do you feel afterwards? Are you out of breath? Do you walk some in between? Just from my own experience, if you can do the 2 miles at a 10 min pace and feel like you can talk the entire time, you can probably afford to push it a little harder (go faster). If you find that you are really out of breath, I would work on getting your endurance up by increasing your distance a little and/or phasing out walking breaks. If you are consistant, you should start to find that it gets easier to do the distance. (At which point, you can start increasing your speed.)

Don't worry too much about doing the two miles "as fast as you can every time". We all have bad days, so if you keep too close an eye on the clock, you could end up getting discouraged.

(It'll get easier too, as you reach your weight goal)

Good luck man.

Ben

Ben
Thanks for the tips.

I've got 10 months to get my time down, so I feel I have plenty of time. I just want to get to the 8 minute mark and then slowly improve it with as little pressure as possible.

I typically run for the first mile then alternate walking for about 30 seconds and running for about 3 minutes.

After I get home and take a shower I feel like I could go back out there and do it all again. I never really get out of breath unless I try to push myself and run faster than normal, but my legs are screaming at me at about the 3/4 mile mark.

My goal has been to slowly eliminate the walks. I try to run one block further each time. Sometimes I make it, other times I don't.

BTW, the running seems like a piece of cake compared to the push-up requirement...but I'm getting closer to that too.

Get yourself into sufficient shape that you can run 4 miles continuous at whatever pace it takes. Then start alternating slow long mile days with short fast pace days.
Example:

Mon: 4 easy miles
Wed: 2 med pace miles
Fri: 4 easy miles
Sun: 1 hard mile, 1 easy to medium paced mile

Hey jdr99a, how goes your progress?

I agree with Rob. One of the basic premises of training to race is the concept of "overdistance". For a 2-mile race, getting your stamina beyond 2-miles is going to simultaneously improve your speed when you race that shorter distance. So over the next ten months, as you drop weight and up your mileage, your 2-mile pace is going to get faster and faster. 4-miles might even be a mid-summer goal and then work up to 6 or 7 miles by the time your test comes. If you can bump up to a couple 6 mile runs and a couple 3 mile runs each week, you'll be ready to roll along with that weight loss. And while your training, don't put much stock in your day-in and day-out pace. Just log the miles and lengthen them out. Maybe once a month, give yourself a 2-mile time-trial. I think you'll be surprised each month at how the will come down. G'luck!