Friday, October 26, 2007

Five Long Miles

Warm up, walked .5 miles on the treadmill.
Quick stretch.
5 miles in 63:57.
Cool down, walked .5+ miles.
Longer stretch.

Several observations occur to me. First, my brand new running shoes are laced too tight and now my feet ache. Second, I had the same minor problems with the first two miles, but miles three and four were pretty good. Mile five was bad. And by bad, I mean really bad. It got a lot harder after four miles. At four and a half miles, it got really hard. The last quarter mile was serious death march. I was down to 4.3 miles per hour by then and almost half stumbling a lot. Every tenth of a mile was pure struggle. Back around mile three I was enjoying conquering those mental demons, imagining myself as some kind of dragon slayer or something. Well every single one of those demons and dragons was waiting for me in that last quarter mile. And finally, one last observation, I’m a lot more flexible after five miles of running. I hope I can avoid every muscle in my body cinching up like leather straps drying on wood.

If I can run five miles, the frostbite series should be fairly easy. I don’t know how soon I’m likely to try anything longer than five miles though. Right now, I can’t imagine how marathoners do it, much less those super endurance runners doing 100+ mile races.

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