Running a Mile

Evan Kirmse

This is the story of how I ran a mile in less than 10 minutes. The story opens on me, standing with my father across the street from our house. I can feel the wind blowing and the sun brightly shining. It isn’t too hot, but it certainly isn’t cold. I’m getting ready to run my mile for PE. My dad said that he ran an 8-minute mile in college, and predicted that I couldn’t do it in under 10 minutes. The purpose of this narrative is to rub it in his face.

I take off running at a pretty fast speed (for me, anyway). I feel the wind whoosing in my face and the sun shining in my eyes. I get pretty far before I get really out of breath and speed walk for a bit. I come up on a group of teenagers playing basketball in the street. I think they think that I’m one of their friends that came over to play basketball, because they start walking towards me and wave, and I’m like, “I don’t want to deal with this right now,” so I just keep running. They eventually realize that they don’t know me and I don’t know them, and we move on with our lives.

I get to my turning point (little inside joke for everyone that’s still actually paying attention and not just spacing out) and I’m feeling really tired, but I still need to get home. I turn around and keep moving at a pretty slow pace. I come to those basketball people again and they recognize me and just ignore me completely (which I’m not complaining about at all, in case you were wondering).

I’m on the last stretch of my route, and I can see the “finish line” from where I am. I’m SUPER out of breath and can’t wait to be finished. I finally get there and when my dad asks, “Guess your time,” I don’t talk. 

I literally can’t because I’m so out of breath, so I just stand there until I manage to get out, “12 minutes?” 

He says, “Way lower.” 

So I guess, “10 minutes?” 

And he tells me, “9 minutes and 21 seconds.” 

So I say, “BOOM! In your face!” in a very exasperated voice. (Remember, I can barely talk over here.) We walk back across the street, and I collapse on the steps and stay there for a few minutes while I catch my breath. “VICTORY!” I think to myself. It is also important to note that I celebrated with ice cream. It’s a very important detail that cannot be left out of this narrative. This narrative will now end abruptly. Goodbye.