I ran my first 5k Sunday morning. It was a bush league race for globe med. I define a bush league race as a sparsely attended, poorly advertised race where I can finish in the top ten. Also, to really make sure it is bush league there needs to be runners on the course who don't know that a race is going on. I showed up on time and ran the race. I kept pace with some nice people and we finished our first mile in like 8 minutes. It was glorious. I wore my vibram 5 finger sandals. They worked great and I had no shin splints. However, the "knuckles" of my feet hurt really bad today. My friend Q told me to ditch the shoes and run bare foot. I am not quite ready for that yet. Anyway, the nice people kept pace with me for the first half of the race and then decided to walk. I kept chugging along. I really wanted to stop and walk but I played mind games with myself so that I could keep going. I focused on my posture and breathing for a while. Later, I focused on only stepping on asphalt (a challenge because the course was covered in gumballs and sticks). Then, I tried to catch up with the guy in front of me. It didn't work out but, it kept me running. I finally finished 9th with a time of 29:50. I am going to declare phase one of the ultra marathon training complete. Now, I want to get my 5k time below 25 minutes. Here are the phases of my plan.

1. get myself to the point where I can run 30 minutes
2. train for a 5k
3. complete a 5k with a decent time
   
4. train for a 10k
5. complete a 10k with a decent time
   
6. train for a half marathon
7. complete a half marathon with a decent time
   
8. train for a marathon
9. complete a marathon with a decent time
   
10. train for an ultra marathon
    
11. complete the ultra marathon!
    

Right now, I am at step 1.5. I finished a 5k but i did not have a good enough time. My goal now is to get myself to the point where I can legitimately run a 5k. For the near future I am going to focus on running it in under 25 minutes. Then depending on how that works out, I might try to get it under 20.

My friend hugh recommended that I now go for mileage. He said that I might try three 5 mile runs a week and then an x miler at the end. He also said not to rest more than two days between runs. I thought the 5k was gnarly, but in the next month I'll add another two miles to my workout. for the past three weeks I have been running almost exactly three miles every run totaling about 9-12 miles a week. Wish me luck!