Archive for March, 2008

The 282 Foot Dash

Friday, March 14th, 2008

I went for a run yesterday, and I felt that desire to crank it up again.    I am about to enter a 100 miler for November, and start serious training for that.  Kind of excited about it, after taking several months of rest. 

 When I got home from my run, Tamara and my daughter Emily were waiting for me to help her complete a homework assignment of measuring how far one of her parents could run in 10 seconds.  In her PE class, they had to see how far THEY could run in 10 seconds.  So, Emily marks a starting line and sends me off, Tamara monitors the clock,  Ashley is down the street to mark the finish spot.  I’m feeling like an idiot trying to sprint on legs that don’t do a lot of sprinting these days.  While they are screaming wildly for me to go faster like it’s a real race,  the neighbors are sitting out on their property with friends,  drinking beer and wondering what the heck the Harper’s are up to now.

The measurement was 282 feet and some inches.  Not even a day later, and I wish I could do it again, I could go much farther with a better start and quicker accelaration.  I slow getting to top speed.  Funny how I can break that 10 seconds into 3-4 different pieces just like you might a long distance run.  Forget it, I think I’m too old to start training for the 100 yard dash!

I came inside the house gasping for air.  WOW, that was hard!  I cannot believe how long it took me to recover from that effort of 10 seconds of 100% effort.  It’s very different to run like that, to give 100% effort from a complete rest,  than it is to do the long aerobic distances, or even to sprint to the finish of something like a triathlon run, or 5 or 10k.   It was fun, and Emily was impressed that I went far.