The following Mark's Daily Apple article was written by Marksissons and is narrated by Brock Armstrong.

Better than a marathon, the one-mile challenge.

If you wanted schoolyard acclaim at my middle school, you didn't bother with how

much you could bench, how many pull-ups you could do, or how far you could throw a football.

And you certainly didn't bother with running a marathon. The true path to lasting seventh-grade

athletic immortality ran a mile in length. If you could beat six

minutes, you were fast. Break five and a half, you were elite. Once a week during PE, we'd line up on

the track to test our medal. Coach would say go, click his stopwatch, and we were off chasing glory.

You'd run and you'd run until you got to that final leg or you'd kick without even knowing it and propel your body

past your rival to beat him and your own time. The mile was special. It proved useful in high

school too. My first year there, I was smart enough to

place out of a few classes and ended up in an all-senior PE class, where I got towel-wipped

and tit-twisted to the point of bleeding. But once spring track season rolled around,

I became the top point man on the varsity squad by routinely trouncing the

opposition in the mile and two mile runs and sometimes pole vault. This gave me cred. The locker

room hazing stopped. I'd found my calling, running. Of course, I ditched the mile run to chase glory in the marathon and later

triathlon. I sometimes wish I'd never graduated past the mile, but then I might not be here

talking to you. What happened to me and my body throughout years of chronic cardio was probably

necessary to make me who I am today.

Since going primal and giving up the vast majority of my endurance training,

I've found value in revisiting my old chum, the mile run.

You guys should do the same.

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