This Friday the 13th is certainly not bad luck for me. I just ran the fastest Minnekahda 5 miler since I moved back to Chattanooga.
I once ran the Disney Marathon in 3:13:00 which is a 7 minute 21 second pace for all 26.2 miles. I worked very hard, for years to get to that speed and basically gave up all strength training and also weighed in at 135 pounds. I never thought that I would see that kind of speed again as I have gotten much stronger and bigger over the years and just kind of accepted that loss of speed may be a sacrifice for being much stronger and heavier.
Last year, I was running and rucking a ton in preparation for the Goruck Selection event and felt like I was in pretty good shape but I was struggling to run a 7:30 pace for 5 miles.
Today, I ran a 35:22 for 5 miles which includes a very big hill. This is a 7:04 pace which really surprised me. I had to check the clock twice and then make sure that I was reading it correctly.
When I recorded my score, I had set an all time PR on this run by 3:47. I was also surprised to see that I was within 30-40 seconds of the all time gym record on this run. I had killed this run today.
What happened? Not sure...
I weighed 187 earlier this year and prompted by the weight loss competition that we had, I got down to 164 momentarily but went back up to 175. I contacted Mike Dolce of The Dolce Diet and had him write a plan for me and I love the way I am feeling on it. My weight has dropped to 169 and holding pretty steady.
Losing 18 pounds will certainly make you run faster, but there is something else happening as well.
I am on the 3rd week of the Wim Hof Method for breathing and I really think that it is affecting my performance. I have had 2 instances of setting lifetime PR's on cardio events that have just come out of nowhere. First, I did 100 burpees unbroken in the mid 4's. I was so surprised that I just glanced at the clock and thought that I had miscounted...I did 10 more and finished 110 in 5:02. I have never come close to this time. It really surprised me and left me wondering if the breathing had anything to do with the PR.
After today, I am pretty sure that the breathing and cold showers have helped to unlock some potential that I didnt know that I had. If this is true, then the WHM could be a huge advantage to competitive athletes.
I know that Wim is working personally with Allistar Overeem, MMA fighter, right now. I will be interested to see what his results are.
The breathing exercises are very enjoyable to me and I do look forward to them every day. I will continue to do them and hopefully make a connection with performance increases,
