As you can see, I've added a new running log section to this site. I'm using a database (come on, I'm a geek!) to store my running progress. However, I've had some confusion lately over what distances I'm actually running. As I said before, the method I used before was to drive my car along a route, and check the odometer. This seemed to work pretty well, but Scott suggested Mapquest as a more accurate method. Woo!

This is where the confusion comes in. Last weekend, I ran 3 miles around the Stanford campus track and timed myself. Since it's a track, I know I ran exactly 3 miles, and I calculated my average mile time at 11 minutes, 46 seconds. Slow, but okay. However, using Mapquest, I calculated my usual morning running route at 4.03 miles. This morning, I ran that route in 40 minutes. So that comes out to 9 minutes, 55 seconds per mile. Much better. But is it really possible that I ran 1 minute and 51 seconds faster per mile? I could feel that I was running faster than usual this morning, and I did feel on Saturday that I was running slower than usual, but that seems like a pretty big difference. Is Mapquest lying to me? I would like to be able to run a sub-5 hour marathon, but now I'm just confused. Come Saturday, I guess I will see for sure how fast I am actually running.