The First Mile

Does anyone else remember the first time they ran a mile?

I do. I was in 5th grade, and it was for the Presidential Fitness test. I was a gymnast at the time, and I wanted to actually run the mile instead of just jog/walk it with the other girls in the class so we wouldn't mess up our hair (I was one of those girls).

I remember a lot about that day, actually. I was in Mr. Wasner's class and I remember it was the day Jason Smith started going out with my best friend Katie Ficker. I remember chatting with her on the way to the track about her possibly kissing him (they broke up the next day). I remember I had a crush on Marc Stencel and I was happy that maybe I would have my first boyfriend soon (we used to write them notes on pink paper and spray it with our mom's perfume).

I ran it in 8:52 and I remember being really excited about it. I was aiming for under 9 minutes. To me, that was fast. I was this little, probably sub-5 foot girl and I tried really hard to get the 4 laps over with. I remember bragging about it when I got home and when I went to gymnastics later. It wasn't all that impressive. I had been going to gymnasic lessons for well over a year for 9 hours a week of heavy workouts. I was in good shape for a 5th grader.

Still, it was hard. Every year I hated running that mile, and I never liked running at all. I would astound my 11 year old self with the idea that I would ever be able to run over 20 miles, faster than that. Still today, I hate the first mile of a run. Or even, the first three. Once I hit that 2-3 mile mark, thats when I really start to feel like I'm moving.

Today, I slept in until 8am, and the only running I did was the mile to the metro in order to make it to work on time. Instead of a double today, I'm planning it for Friday instead of the day off. Apparently once a week is all you need. I'm going to do a 7.5 run at race pace tonight, complete with a stair workout and strength training since I'll have the extra time. It was funny, I woke up at 4 am, wide awake and almost stayed up to go run at 5am, but decided to do that laying down and drifted off to sleep. I'm curious now about REM cycles (I was so exhausted trying to get out of bed, even at 8 this morning), maybe I should start scheduling 9 hours of sleep at night now that I have over 50 miles planned for next week? Maybe I need to sleep in sets of three hours, since I was clearly up and alert after 6 hours. Something to ponder....