Six out of eight, and thats about a fourth of twenty-six

April 21, 2007 | Filed Under Uncategorized 

With the USMC Marathon day fast approaching, and Old Man Winter’s exit from DC now apparently a firm thing, I knew I’d need to step up the training to run 26-something miles.

Here’s the thing. Before today, I’ve probably never run more than three miles in my life. I’m horrible at running. I run a block and get stitches. The cold-water-in-the-face moment for me was when I was at the gym doing the treadmill and I look over at the guy next to me, who’s probably packing thirty pounds extra, mabye twenty years older than me, and he’s running at a pace much higher than I am, and for far longer than I ever did.

So I knew I’d need to get some serious mileage under my heels if I was going to have any hope to finish the marathon. This morning I joined up with my roomate and a few of his running buddies to do a morning run. We all arrived at the meeting point and Dan, my roomate told me that we’d be doing a 8 mile run, “in about a hour”. I was horrified. I’d been barely working up to a 6.5mph pace and I’d be able to keep it for about half-a-hour, max. Which might not be much, but it was a huge improvement over the last month. And now we’re talking about a eight-mile-hour pace for a hour? That was pratically sprinting for me…

I wanted to fake an ankle-sprain right there or something. Dan gives me a smack on the back and says “oh you’ll be fine!”

So we set out on the run. I went a lot further, a lot faster than I ever thought I’d do. I was able to stay with the group for six miles before my legs started to threaten to quit on me. I told the group to go ahead and I’d walk the rest of the way home. Dan said to me before parting, “Hey, that aint bad.. thats about a one-fourth of the marathon you just did.”

Lord have mercy on me.

Comments