Martians Neutralized

Mission Objectives:

1. Use Martian Marathon as a training run. Time goal: 4:15 – 4:30 – why? I really don’t know


2. Run Marathon comfortably and finish feeling like I had miles still left in the tank


3. Get up before Marathon and get some additional miles in. Try to make it a 50k day.


4. Stick to run/walk strategy
   

Arise from hyperbaric chamber @ 4 am and rambled around for pretty close to 6 miles before heading out to Martian Marathon and utilized run/walk strategy to a T. Had my Martian Vaporizer Backpack on (Read: Golite Tailwind Pack, complete with Hammer Gels, Digital Voice Recorder and Jesus Phone) and met up with Skywalker before race start. Stupidly abandoned run/walk strategy for first 6 miles of marathon and ran at near 8 min/mile pace with Skywalker as we chased Martians. They seemed to appear at every mile marker and change color.

Skywalker became stricken with what is believe to be a space induced calf injury and bugged out @ half marathon turnaround. Decided that I need to adhere to walk/run strategy and slowed pace down. Repeat to self: Not a race, training run. Kept mouth shut (very hard to do) from other astronauts out on course stating: “Hang in there. You are looking great.”

Turnaround @ halfway mark to face stiff re-entry headwind as I approached Earth (Finish Line). Knees start to ache a bit just past 26 mile mark and wonder if space boots (Nike Air Pegasus ESC) that are really meant for the craters of Mars (trail) do not have enough pillowiness (cushioning). About mile 30, hit a groove and cruise to landing in 4 hr 7 min.

Have intergalatic positioning system (timing chip) snipped off and look for food. See fellow astronauts who did not handle re-entry and decompression so well as they hobble over to food chamber. Grab some pie (pizza) and cookies, look at odemeter for day: 32.32 miles – 5 hr 15 min. Smile.

One happy Dawg. Mission Accomplished