Winner of the 2012 Mile Time Prediction

I’m embarrassed to admit to you, my readers, that lately I have had things in my life that have taken priority over blogging.  Please accept my promise to you that this will never happen again, or more realistically, that if it does, I will be extremely humiliated.  I know you’ve been really angry at me for telling you that I would run a mile and then give a prize to whoever came close to guessing my time, and then not saying another word on the subject.  Your anger can end now.

I actually ran my timed mile almost two weeks ago, on Tuesday the 10th.  Differences between last year’s mile and this year’s mile were:

1. Last year was at Cleveland High School, this year at Grant High School
2. Last year I had a photographer, this year I did not
3. Last year I ran alone, this year I had someone to pace me
4. Last year I got 14 people to guess at my mile time, this year I only got 5

I think that number 4 is the most important difference seen here, as it confirms my suspicion that very few people care how fast I can run a mile, and my failure to quickly produce a prize for last year’s winner has made even less people care.  I will be sure to get prizes out to both winners promptly (although not just yet), and maybe next year I can get a record-breaking number of people to guess (that would only take 15 people!).

Number 3 is the second most important, because having a pacer can really help in improving your mile time.  I still went out too fast (81 seconds, which is 5:24 pace), but it really helped when at the end I got all lazy and had someone there to remind me how much faster I can actually run.

I can tell you’re getting super curious about my time by now, and I assure you that I’m about to tell you.  But first, here’s what people guessed:

While I appreciate the 5:42 and the 5:50, the sad news is that I’m not that fast yet.  I thought for sure that the 6:02 would have no chance, since the times right around it got guessed, but it turns out that I was exactly 6:02 fast at the mile, making my good friend Chris McDonald the Ultimate Grand Supreme Winner of this competition.  Congratulations Chris McDonald!  Your prize will come soon(ish).

The best part about only five people guessing, is that it makes it really easy for me to create statistics about the readers who care about my running time.  Blogger gives me some statistics about who reads my blog, but it’s all very vague and impersonal.  But now I can tell you things like this:

• 100% of my readers are male between the ages of 25 and 29
• 40% of my readers live outside the United States
• 20% of my readers are really good at making cat-shaped lamps
• 40% of my readers have a twin

If you’re super sad about missing out on the chance to win a cool prize and being part of my readership statistics, don’t worry, I might do this again next year.  In the mean time, I’ll be taking another couple of stabs at the mile in the next few weeks at University of Portland’s Tuesday Night at the Races, which are indoor track meets.  I won’t be giving out prizes for correctly guessed times, but I will accept encouraging words of encouragement.  I really want to beat 6 minutes!

On a final note, yes, I am still working on my goal of averaging 30 miles per week.  I’ve only made it to 30 miles one out of the three weeks of 2012 so far, but that’s the beauty of allowing averaging.  I can still accomplish my resolution, I just have to run more than 30 miles during some weeks now – which isn’t easy, but it is possible.

Puppy of the week: Blaze, my cousin’s dog, who I visited in San Jose this weekend.  8 months old and almost 100 pounds!  We went running up Bear Mountain while I was there.

Miles run in 2012: 69
Average miles/week in 2012: 23