Since I knew that it was the longest distance yet attempted, I tried to go slow on purpose so that I wouldn't have to sleep at Hunter College on 68th. So you can imagine my confusion when I put my time, 25:45, into our little pace calculator and see that it says: 8m, 2s. What?! I ran over 3 miles at an 8 minute mile pace? Ok, either I'm counting this wrong (but I have a watch!), the formula is wrong (but Adam wrote it!), or I'm getting in shape like whoa.
Hopefully the last.
I've come to an epiphany recently about my previous unremarkable running capabilities. What usually happened was this:
1) Get psyched. Start running.
2) Start breathing hard.
3) Start gasping.
4) Get a cramp.
5) Barely make it to one mile, then stop and wonder why it was so horrible while I recover.
I attributed this to me being a crappy distance runner, because everyone else seemed to be able to power on. What I didn't realize is that, well yeah, everyone feels that to some extent at the beginning. Once I started grinding through the one mile mark and making it up to 2-2.5 miles, it felt ten times better. Now the track team doesn't seem so insane when they're doing their one mile warm-ups.
On an unrelated topic: I found this site that summarizes just how much snow is in Central Park. They say that they have 56 inches total this year already, which is 44 more than the average. Look at the pictures, and then imagine that there was a bout of freezing rain on top of it and everything is shining like polished silver and hard as a rock.
"I always loved running...it was something you could do by yourself, and under your own power. You could go in any direction, fast or slow as you wanted, fighting the wind if you felt like it, seeking out new sights just on the strength of your feet and the courage of your lungs."
Jesse Owens
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