Stutisheel, 2004
At 5:10 the alarm rings. The time counter immediately turns on, because the start is already at 6 in the morning, and you need to have time to do a lot of things. The block and the house in which they rent a room for us are completely asleep. Ideal conditions for concentration on the heart. More than 10 minutes does not work – time pressure works. However, during these ten minutes at the beginning of the day, it is often possible to establish a bridge to your inner reserves – it starts to warm up in your chest. Often, in these moments I set myself a goal for today in laps. After concentration, I sit down to prepare my legs for a long work day . On the ankle – cabbage under the socks, to prevent boiling of the legs in sneakers. On the knees – olive oil and aloe (to quickly absorb the oil) – so that the knees have enough lubrication.
At 5:50 I go out into the street, where a car picks me up and brings me to the start in a few minutes. Sometimes, when 5 minutes are given before the arrival of the car, I do stretching: swings, squats. A couple of minutes before the start (start every day at 6:04, like on the first day), I look through the printed results of the previous day, swallow vitamins, take yogurt and go to the start.
6:04 am, start. Walking half a circle or a whole circle serves as a warm-up for the body and stomach. The working day begins. I try very hard to keep the pace constant, it turns out 6-7 laps per hour at 883 meters (6 km/h). At the beginning, after the 10th lap, I walked another lap so that the body entered the rhythm of long hours of exercise.
9-10 am. It’s time to move on to a more hearty breakfast than the yogurt and bananas at the beginning. Usually it is mashed potatoes, soy stacks and scrambled eggs. Breakfast stretches over several laps: on each lap you take a small portion in a cup and eat it all on the go for 100-200 meters. This often happened after a stretch break. 10-15 minutes were spent on exercises for the neck, turns, bends, squats (which help a lot with clogged hips), stretching the calves. I must say that on the concrete lap, the hips clogged the most. In second place are the calf muscles. And when there were no massage therapists, I tried to stretch these muscles with squats and special exercises.
12 pm. I did breaks and massages not by time, but by laps passed. Around noon or later, I went for the first massage after 50 laps. No more than 20 minutes – legs and back. The lower back also bears a huge load. We often massaged ourselves on the go as we transitioned to a walk on turns and on hills (although the elevation difference on the lap is negligible, after day 5 almost everyone was walking in the same place. This is called the 3100 runner climb. Another person in this place may not notice anything).
4 pm. After lap 75, I took another break to stretch. After the break, lunch. Again, for a few laps, you could eat soup from cups, vegetarian sandwiches, etc.
7 pm. Around the 90th lap – the second massage of the day. Although, I must say that over time, the legs get used to the track. And in the second half of the race, there were cases when one massage was enough for me for several days. I must add that on the track we were served by chiropractors (manual therapists, homeopaths, etc. – all in one). Their help was also exceptional. Once every few days, my cervical vertebrae were inserted, and once they put my knee joint in place – it turned out that it was precisely because of its displacement that I could not run at full strength. For me, the late afternoon and after sunset was usually accompanied by a surge of energy or just a sense of stability. A few days before sunset I managed to do 100 laps and I was extremely happy.
At 10:30-11:30 pm I did 113-116 laps. I usually walked the last lap to cool dawn the running “engine” and at the same time refreshed myself to save time. I didn’t eat at home. I said “stop for today” and they took me home to rest. At home, shower, in rare cases massage, “ojas” cream on the feet, cabbage leaves on the knees, softening cream on the soles of the feet, concentration and around midnight or 00:30 am – sleep. I slept with a box under the calf muscles, since my legs are used to being in a half-bent state for entire day and falling asleep on a flat, albeit soft bed, is simply impossible. Surprisingly, these 4:30-5 hours of sleep were enough for the body to recover, you got enough sleep and started the next day of journey at the endless lap in a good mood.
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