In a glorious attempt to destroy any remaining shred of privacy I may have on this online journal, it is time to trace my running route. First, I had to trace it myself, trying to figure out how far it was. So, I bought a replacement battery for my bike distance tracker attachement. Adding an extra ‘e’ to that word gives it more authority. Anyhow, I went to the specialty battery store, which, at a sterile 66 degrees, was completely devoid of people except myself and the sales clerk. He asked me what I needed and I handed him the button battery from my bike attachement. He glanced at it for about two seconds, and walked around the counter to a shelf directly behind me, plucking a small battery from the shelf. I began to question to legitimacy of this man’s job. A battery store would be the ultimate application of the ‘self-serve’ check-out ideal: walk up to a store front about the size of an ATM, hand the machine your battery (or type in the words on the front of it), and you are able to select from the available batteries. It grabs them from an automatic stockroom, you pay, and it hands you a battery. The man in the battery store probably would not like this idea.

Installation of the battery in the attachement went fine, and I traced out my distance, being sure to cut corners where I do when I run, and avoiding small children and cars along the way. You may think that last detail was superfluous, however I have been known to run into small children (both accompanied by their parents and alone), and quite nearly into cars at blind stop signs. The realization that running into something would ruin my distance tracking is probably the only thing that kept me from doing so. My route turned out to be exactly 3.1 miles. I do mean exactly. Just as I passed the end of my driveway, where I customarily end my run, the counter flipped over to 3.1 miles.

So, I set out to run this in 18 minutes. 13mph wind. 92 degrees out. What a dumb idea. I mean, 92 degrees? Mile one was good, downhill, made it in 6:05. Mile two: my body asked “why are you doing this to me?” Got one of those shivers up your back which signal the approaching visit of adrenaline or tunnel vision, the latter in this case. Pulled it together and came across the 2 mile mark at 12:30. Mile three: death. See, I forgot to factor in mile three’s half-mile ridiculous-hill-‘o’-pain-and-agony (the big straight horizontal line on the map). This made my final mile 8 minutes long. Finished at house at 20 minutes, 30 seconds, stumbled inside and hosed down with cold water.

As suspected, within ten minutes I found myself saying “gosh legs and heart that wasn’t so bad.” My legs, the punks that they are, replied “sit down … now.” My heart simply said “boom boom boom boom boom …” Stomach reported “possible nausea.”

UPDATE: I should have used a wonderful Google Maps API Hack called “Google Pedometer” to map my route. My latest route came in at 5 miles. This awesome tool saves the trouble of biking the routes, though I think I still will as biking is such a pleasure.

• Working out
• Running
• Google Maps

5 comments left

Essays Nearby

• Why Hello There
• Death? Close.
• Facebook
• An Informal Poll