The 10 mile high club

I told myself that if I ran ten miles yesterday, I would be allowed to brag about it on the Internet.

Ten was a personal record for me, and one I have been building up to over the past few weeks. I've been a runner for more than ten years, but up until a month or so ago, never really ran longer than seven. That was all I could do in an hour, and an hour was the longest amount of time any treadmill would ever let me program. And after an hour of running, I've usually become too bored with the thoughts in my head that I'm happy to call it a day.

But a few weeks ago, my hand accidentally knocked into the emergency stop button, prematurely ending my run around the 40 minute mark. Frustrated, because it is so hard to start again after losing momentum, I reset the machine for another half an hour, figuring I would run for 20 minutes or until I just got tired. Twenty minutes came and went, and I wasn't tired, so ran until I hit 8 miles. Figuring that I should stop before I hurt something, I did, but have added an extra half mile to each of my Saturday runs since then.

The hardest part is never the physical, but the mental. Being alone with my own thoughts for so long, the redundancy of the hamster wheel. Knowing that cardiovascularly, my body can handle the distance, but some things, like blisters or chafing, can hinder my run and are often beyond my control. Having to reset the treadmill and cut the time in two - 6 miles and 4 miles, for instance - to beat the 60 minute pre-programmed time limit. Having to stop in the middle of a runner's high is hard; having to start over with no time or miles on the screen is awful.

Most people think I'm crazy for running this long on a treadmill at all. It's not like the weather here is confining me to the gym. I do love to run outside, in fact, but when I want to actually moniter myself for improvement, the treadmill is really the best way to control my surroundings.

Ten ended up being a breeze, and I did it in 83 minutes - which is, oddly, the exact same amount of time it took me to run nine and a half the week before. I must have been extremely sluggish last week, or my coffee yesterday was extra strong, because there's no way I shaved off 4 and 1/2 minutes within a week.

Although that is going to be my goal moving forward. Happy with mediocrity, I am willing to quit while I am ahead, and concentrate on improving my speed over the next few weeks. The achievement was extremely rewarding, but I have no desire to spend an hour and a half every Saturday on the treadmill.

Maybe just one Saturday per month.