Dragons

Things weren't going too shabby for me running-wise. You see, I have sorta gone with a plan of running 30 mins a day for a week, then kicking it up to 35 the following week, and so on. Starting a plan from scratch, I have found (numerous times), is probably the hardest part. Obviously I'm not going to follow one of those programs in Runner's World or the inside of my Nike Free shoe box. But I am really nowhere near good enough shape to act like I am in much better shape than any old fatty who just decides to take up running for the first time.

Actually, I am probably in no better shape -- I just have experience to understand (even if I don't listen to myself) how training doesn't have to start and stay at 6 minute pace everyday -- starting from day one.

When I was in the army we had to do a 2 mile run as part of our fitness test. 13 minutes would gather the maximum points for my (and any) age group. I had a buddy, Barker, who was kinda one of those guys who was always shooting to excel at things that he really should have just been happy to be decent at. He was in a different age group than me and so he only needed to run a 13:30 or something to max his score. Barker was one of those dudes who was kinda overweight and entered the military being pretty into weightlifting but not at all into running. Still, by the time I knew him, he had been to something like 9 weeks of basic training and maybe 7 weeks of training in Ft Huachuca and he was in the 13:15 range.

Every year (must be in the late fall or early winter) there is some sort of 10K race that the MI battalion puts on down at the base. There are various competitions and our 1SG was dead set on beating those bastards from Delta Company so he volunteered the best runners in the company for the team and then told anyone else that they could join if they wanted. I was fine about being volunteered because it meant that, for about three weeks I could run six days a week instead of three -- and skip those three days of the push-ups and sit-ups workouts (which I wasn't as good at).

Barker volunteered for the team and, in all honesty, it was basically a classic Blax pre-race cram session. One morning we would go run some steep-ass hill. The next would be some rolling hills. The next would be the course. And every run ended with the final mile or so being "all out". Obviously it was sort of retarded to be training everyone to run a 2 mile time trial all the time and then expect them to field up a 10k team -- but this is the army we are talking about.

"We're bogged down in the middle of an urban/guerrilla war? Hey -- I know a good thing! How about we get new uniforms that make us harder to see in the desert but easier to see in the jungle."

WTF?

So anyways, I was the fastest guy on our team and that's when Barker came to me and asked for advice on getting under 13:00 for his two-mile, I told him that he should simply not take the approach that running is juts prolonged sprinting. Every fitness test, we would start the two-mile and Barker would go out with all the other scrubs who figured that going out and hard and hanging on was the best strategy (this was before the army started using strategery as a form of preparation). I told him that if he'd just not be a punk and go through a mile in 6-flat, he'd be fine.

Long story made short, the day of our final fitness test he went out next to me and said he was just going to try to hang with me for as long as he could. It wasn't probably more than half a mile and he ran almost 14 minutes. I called him a punk. Barker ended up going crazy somehow and got a discharge because he was all stressed-out or something.

But yeah, as this relates to my current training regimen, I got back from my fishing trip on Friday, played a rugby match on Saturday, and plan on getting back to the old running train this week.

I think this week will be 35 minuters. I am feeling a little tight/sore today but I am confident I will be alright as the week goes by.

Happy Easter.