Mile test

This is the post you've all been waiting for, I can tell.  I've been too busy the last 2 nights to write about it, but I had a very good run at the track on Wednesday.  I have a goal this year to run a mile in less than 6 minutes.  Yes, you read that right, 6 minutes or less.  Last year I set the goal to run a mile in less than 7 minutes.  My first attempt in 2011 was on May 27, and it was 7:26.  I ran it in 6:48 less than three months later on August 18th.  And on December 28th, I did it in 6:17, and I set the goal to go under 6:00 this year.  My last attempt was on February 1st, and I did it in 6:11.  To speed this up a little, I tried again on Wednesday, the 4th of July.  I took my 9 year old videographer to capture the occasion on camera.  I was excited about the video, I have never seen what I look like when I run.  Have you ever wondered- do I run like that awkward runner?  Which one? 

 Source:  http://www.youtube.com/user/dontbethatguyvids
The Geezer?  The Dandy?  The T-1000?  The Flight-less Bird?  The Stiffy?  Watch the video above, then the video below, and leave your guess in the comments.

So, in all it was a good run.  I did my 4 laps in 6:04, with a 0:09 negative split.  The negative split tells me I had more in the tank at the end and I could have run the start faster.  I definitely felt sluggish during that first half.  So I think I've got it in the bag the next time around.  My last lap was 1:26.4 (that's 5:45 pace), so I know I can manage 4 laps at 1:29.9 to get under the 6:00.

Warning:  Here comes the geeky stuff.

I took the video files from the camera, copied them to my computer, converted them to a compatible format and loaded them into MATLAB.  Here's the screenshot:

I took the video above, and another one from my warmup and went through frame-by-frame.  I calculated my stride rate and stride length and confirmed a small hitch in my stride.  Very interesting stuff.  It was fairly straight forward to do since the info is all printed on the screen- frame rate, current frame and total frames.

Thank you MATLAB 7.8.0!!