1000 miles

A lot of you know that I once wrote a story called "100 Miles" It's a cheesy prom story. Guys love it. Or at least they tell me they do. If you haven't had a chance to read it yet, it can be accessed here: http://www.fictionpress.com/s/2180126/1/A_Hundred_Miles.

What just a few people know is that years later, I was jogging along and listening to Blink 182 and I had an epiphany. Kind of a sad one, actually. It went there are no happy endings. Actually, since it wasn't exactly articulated in words, it would be more like there couldn't have been a happy ending for them in high school. And so, the short story continued into a potential novel...a cheesy break up & put yourself back together story. (Sorry for the spoiler, but really, it is pretty predictable in that way, and I'm not apologizing for that.) The thing is, one tenet I wanted to put into the novel is a "mileage" of its own...after consulting with cross-country runners I knew, I thought 1000 miles over the course of a year was a nice round number...actually low for a runner in training & competition, but probably not too low for one who is heartbroken at least 1/3-1/2 of that time.

I was out for a run-turned-6-mile-walk the other day and I had a thought that's been steadily growing on me: I could run 1000 miles in a year. My typical run right now is about 1.4 including warm up/cool down walks of about 1-2 blocks (south to the park, around it, then back home). I can do that in 20ish minutes, 30 including getting ready. That's where I am now. I hope that with time and practice I can improve (or there is something seriously wrong).

If I were to spread 1000 miles evenly over the year, that's 2.7 mi/day. About twice what I run now, and I can't run every day; you need recovery time. 4-5 days a week would be ideal. That's 19.2 miles a week; almost 4-5 miles a day. Seems daunting. But if I bring it down to 10mi/week to start, say for the first month or two, that becomes 2 miles a day, 5 days a week....very much doable. I can even do 1.5 miles 4 times and then the remaining 4 miles on a weekend when I can cut out a longer chunk of time all at once.

I'm still fleshing out a few things about my plan:

• As I learned from the 'run-turned-walk' that started it all, some days I just can't run. It hurts. In various places. Obviously if I can't put in miles on those days, it will set me back lots, especially since these times sometimes last a week or more. On those occasions, and those occasions only, I'm thinking about logging miles by walking, at an 'exchange rate.' like half or 1/3 of the actual miles. This article references a study that says running vs walking uses 2x the energy per mile, after subtracting an estimated resting metabolic rate. Therefore I'm inclined to count 1/3 of the walking, to give myself a penalty, i.e. encouragement to run. I'm thinking if I find a place to go hiking, I could count 1/2 that because of the extra challenge of terrain...


• Problem 2: I don't know when I want to start...I want to pick a pretty round date so I can celebrate it at the same time next year if I succeed. May 1 seems really close and I have a presentation May 3...finals are in the teens of May, but after that I have a review of my research coming up so the extra stress of starting a new 'project' seems ill-advised. Though having a fitness "program" to stick with that I've already started may be helpful to my well being those few weeks.

I think that's about it for problems...I intend to go out in the mornings, because chances are taht otherwise I wont and because in the summer, mornings will be way cooler than afternoons.

So, what do you all think? Suggestions? Anyone want to join me?