With quarantine halting many fall sports on campus, I tried a new workout to test my fitness.

Since athletics being cancelled in March, I have been training during the entire quarantine for cross country, with no competition in sight. With all this time on my hands, I have been trying various workouts to add variety to fitness. After eight months of quarantine, workouts started becoming repetitive and I was starting to feel burnt out. 

Last week I began searching the internet for a new challenge. I wanted something that involved running but not as common as a 5k road-race or chocolate milk mile. After a couple of hours of getting lost on Youtube, a video from Beau Miles’ channel called, “A Mile an Hour: Running a different kind of marathon,” caught my attention. At first, I thought that it looked pretty easy; all you have to do is one mile twenty four times with a fifty minute break each time. To my surprise, I realized it was not that simple. Miles was not just running, he further explained, “The rest of the time I do as much as possible; making things, odd jobs, fixing stuff. It’s about running, doing and thinking.”

This challenge became a lot more complicated than I thought it would be. Not only do I have to produce results when I run, but I also have to keep myself occupied during my “rest period.” Despite the new rules being introduced, I decided to give it a go and attempt to complete this crazy workout for the first time. 

The first six miles – 6:41, 6:29, 6:28, 6:18, 6:20, 6:18

After I got off work at 6:30 p.m., I changed into my running clothes and started preparing to begin the challenge at 8 p.m. I started my first mile at a calm 6:41 pace and used the freetime I had to watch Kaleo chapel. For the next three miles I used  

my time off to finish homework for various classes and also made peanut butter cookies with my brothers. By the time it was 1 a.m., I did not feel very fatigued and started to feel pretty confident that this was going to be over before I knew it. 

The early morning miles – 6:16, 6:17, 6:15, 6:16, 6:15, 6:15

I spoke too soon because when the clock hit 2 a.m. my body was ready to head to bed for the night. With all my schoolwork taken care of, I had to quickly find something else to fill my time and keep me awake. With that in mind, I opened up my laptop and looked up yoga exercises to pass the time. Honestly, I believe this was such a lifesaver because not only did it keep me from falling asleep, it kept my legs from getting cramped up from the milage. After a couple of hours, it was finally time to make breakfast which was peanut butter and banana toast with orange juice. This was by far the hardest part of the workout.

The daytime miles – 6:15, 6:16, 6:14, 6:15, 6:16, 6:14

With my family awake and them going about their day, it made it so much easier to push through the fatigue I was feeling. After I completed each mile, the majority of my time was spent reading for classes and taking care of my French Bulldogs. As I passed mile eighteen, I had a second wind to finish the rest of this workout on a strong note. 

The final miles – 6:10, 6:09, 6:06, 5:58, 5:42, 5:32

As I cruised through the 20th mile, the fatigue started to catch up to my legs. Thankfully, I had a Zoom class to take my mind off of my weariness and was able to get through the next three miles. When I approached the final mile, I was excited that it would be over as soon — I even picked up the speed and finished with a 5:32 mile, my fastest time during the entire 24 hours. I did not expect my last run to be that quick, but it was a great way to end the workout.

This was definitely one of the hardest physical activities I have ever done. I think the only way I can attempt to do this again would be if my friends joined me. Despite the grueling hours of running, this was a great way to get in self-competition during the pandemic.