On Running (A History)

Foreword

In celebration of achieving a personal goal of running a half marathon in under two hours, I thought I would post up here an old Facebook note (revised and updated) since it seemed appropriate.  I’ve written about running before in a previous post, Why I Enjoy Running, that you can also check out.

 

The Beginning

Running has always been a bit of a love/hate relationship with me. I’m not entirely sure why I first started doing it, my earliest memories were doing one mile fun runs some time in elementary school. I remember that I was always fairly quick whenever we had to run a mile in gym back then (not anything impressive, but usually one of the first few to finish). I joined cross country in 8th grade middle school and decided to stick with it throughout high school. I was usually in the middle to back of the pack, but still managed to finish a couple 5K races in under 20min (my best time was 18:55, which I got on the Manchester course my senior year).

After graduating high school, I went on to college and didn’t do much running anymore. I didn’t join the cross country team, because I wanted to focus more on school and didn’t want to compete at the college level. I instead opted for fencing with my time there in order to stay active and just because hitting people with swords is fun (sadly don’t have the time to continue with it these days). I doubt I really went out and ran more than a few times my first two years in college. The final two years, when I was living off campus, I tried to go out and run more often, but even then it was pretty sporadic.

 

After College

Moving down to Florida after college led me back to a more sedentary lifestyle. After about a year or so, I decided I needed to work on being more physical. I believe this revelation came after gaining several pounds during the alpha period of the first game I worked on. Let’s just say that pretty much all you can eat buffets being served daily was rather nice for a recently graduated college student (who still hasn’t outgrown the ability to turn down free food). So I splurged a bit and helped myself to my fill of cheap catering. After the realization that probably wasn’t the best course of action, and the fact that there was a world-class gym literally across the street from my work that we got great discounts at, I tried my hand at a decent workout routine. I wasn’t the most consistent (with work being what it is, and now having young children, I never really am), but it was a decent effort. Sadly, in that area at least, I decided that I was done with Florida and was going to move north to Chicago.

I was determined to stick with running upon moving, even though I realize that it is rather tough being in a climate that actually gets a decent amount of snow, ice, and all around cold weather. However, I was moving to a much more urban area so had plenty of residential roads (instead of all the highways I was near in Florida) and living on the side of the lake that didn’t get hit with all the snow, so it wouldn’t be too bad. So I tried my best to get out when I could and run the same mile or so that I was doing down in Florida. And for the most part I was successful. However, I didn’t really have a goal to work towards, so I just went out and did what I felt was good enough and that was the extent of that.

 

Motivation

It wasn’t until that I started talking with a few of my coworkers who were planning on running in the Chicago marathon that year that I think my running started to actually get some outside motivation. I ran a few times with them, and shortly thereafter my usual running distance jumped to 2-3 miles at a time. I finally had a decent goal to work towards (wasn’t planning on running in the marathon, but it was good to be running with people that were a bit more serious than just by my lonesome).

Shortly afterwards, my dad had a heart attack, and as part of his recovery he decided that he should take up running and was going to do a 5K race in a few months. My father even joked that he was training to beat me. My mom decided to sign up for the 10K and I joined her. This would technically be my longest race ever as the races in high school CC were only 5K. It turned out to be pretty good motivation.

After that was done I planned on doing a half marathon with my ultimate goal of running in the Chicago marathon. My original goal was to run the marathon in 2010, but sadly I didn’t feel that I was ready with with having young children it was difficult to adequately train myself to what I wanted to do.  But I stuck with doing the half marathon each year and have finally completed it in under two hours, which was my goal.

 

Next Steps

I continue to enjoy running and often take my son with me using my jogging stroller.  I still have the goal of running in the Chicago marathon and want to get a time under 4:30 (which works out to a ten-minute mile pace).  With the kids I find it difficult to run long distances since I need to keep them happy and don’t want to strand my wife with them for too long.  But I suppose that my performance in my last race shows that I can still accomplish much as long as I keep my pace and don’t push myself too far.  These long races are definitely a test of the mind, just putting one foot in front of the other for many miles, slowing going towards my goals.