The first thing I notice: flags flying over the beach, straight from the wind. They tell us it’s running 15 mph (biomechanics: propulsive drag. Velocity of the object in a fluid medium equals the difference of the absolute velocities of the fluid and the body). At points, I will feel it catch the sail of my shoulders and push me along. At other points, it will push me aside, reddening one ear, spitting sea salt and rain drops at me.
My lungs don’t like the first mile but my eyes do: a bridge and a downtown street. The little treadmill bunny giggles between gasps, tightness in my lungs as they adjust to the cold air. Shake the cobwebs out of your legs. You know it’ll take you a bit to feel warmed up.
Tight legs and it’s a 7:12, nice going kiddo, you are going to crash and burn.
Ignore the first five (too long a race to think about ALL the miles, really), 36:xx you can slow down if you want you know.
My legs don’t understand “slowing.” I also become mildly bored, (seven: a third. Good girl! A whole third of the race! lets try and not THINK about miles until 14 or so, shall we?) The next entertainment: gait analysis. Unfortunately this is not as fun when everyone around you is stringing sevens and has somewhat decent form. Q Angle: angle formed hip to knee. Ever since Brian called me “lopey” I have been a student of run form.
Through 10 in 1:14. Good girl, a minute ahead of the 1:15 you were trying to hit. Hip flexors are fatiguing, WHY is it always my hips. Whiny thing, soaked through the fleece windblocking coat AND the blue shirt I borrowed from Kelly yesterday, the one I like to curl up in when I’m anxious.
At 11: you have sixty-six minutes to run nine miles. Yawn. Find a reason to keep running. I’m temporarily un-engaged.
At 12: you have an hour and one minute to run eight. Eight is four-times-two. Keep ticking off seven thirties.
At 13: here’s why you’re going to keep running, because in a couple miles you get to see the mile markers with the big numbers. I like the little signs: numbers you don’t see every day, the taste of surreal when they read seventeen (and you have three to go) eighteen (two miles is no big deal)
At 14: six is three times two, hee hee
At 15: HA! fifteen done and five to go, wait one step past that mile marker and now it’s LESS than five, less than five miles is like a baby run. Hahahahahaaa.
At 16: x is less than or equal to four. Next step. X < 4 and that means three POINT something. 2:00:39 here.
I think mile seventeen is where I thought X < 3 and then realized that my quads are really, really raw and I am running but slowly. Did you know a ‘marathon shuffle’ is actually a pretty efficient gait? I am not shuffling, I am running. It’s just slow. Thought in my head: keep freakin’ running. Three little words, alternated with less than three less than three x is less than three.
Oh, somewhere in there, because I am a geek, I was trying to think of the derivative of inverse tangent. One over one plus x squared, I came up with.
At 18: two left, eight laps around the track, 1 x 2 mi, oooooooooh
At 19: hey there.
At 20: wait they didn’t actually have a 20 marker. Look at time and decide that I am puzzled (wanted to run < 2:30, ran 2:33). Become very thankful I don’t have to run another 10k.
I like
the way eventually suffering takes over, the thoughts taper, by the end of it your only thoughts are of your body and your running.
and Xraycharlie you may NOT have my final 5k split for the virtual 5k because it was slow!!!
