Why do skinny people run so fast?

Boy ... I am right there with you on that one. Once a year our company sponsors a local race. So, everyone gets all excited - especially the people who never train. And what happens to me - I train 5-6 times a week. Well, I get blown away by my colleagues who never run except for the few weeks preceding the race. They'll go out and run a 23 minute 5K and not suffer and I will suffer EVERY SINGLE MINUTE of my 26 minutes.

Yup. Only way to keep up is to get skinnier.

I am in the middle of an experiment right now. We have a 5k trail run tonight. I ran the course this morning wearing a 29 pound weight vest. I can't wait to see how much better my time is tonight. Why 29? That's what I lost since January. I took 44:44 off my half-marathon time in that time. Weight loss is a huge factor.

I notice differences in my run times when I have a weight loss/gain of about fifteen pounds. It seems to be about 20-30 sec./mile difference. I've added about ten pounds or so in the last few months and my times have suffered. Hopefully I'll have time this summer to really get on the training and get it under control.

I've never trained with a weight vest but I've done a lot of hiking with heavy packs and I've noticed that I get faster after doing that for a while. Good luck on the run tonight.