Running The Race

2011 was a great year.  I had the privilege of working with a great group of runners training for the Country Music Half Marathon in April.  The training was through Fleet Feet.  The group’s  goal was to finish in less than two hours.

Then again in July I trained another group of Fleet Feet runners for the Women’s Half Marathon in September.  Some of the same folks were in my group but we also added some new faces.

After the Women’s Half I continued to train a group of about 8 runners.

On a personal side, 2011 was a banner year for me.  I set PRs in every distance, 5k (twice), 10K, half marathon and full.

So as I look forward to 2012, I know it will only get better.

I finished up the last run of 2009 yesterday and totaled up the numbers.

Ran a total of 1,954 miles.  This is down slightly from 2008, mainly due to the four weeks off due to injury in February.

Age does have its advantage, I placed in my age group four times in 2009.  I am sure it is just a matter of “showing up”, in most cases.

All in all not a bad year, two marathons, three half marathons, three 5Ks, a 10 miler and and 10K.

Happy New Year!

Forecast for the Tom King Half Marathon tomorrow is rain.  Last year it was a downpour. This year it appears it is going to be both wet and cold.

Hope the forecasters are wrong!

On Christmas morning, when the girls were young, they would sit at the top of the stairs and wait for for their Christmas stockings. This year they sat at the top of the stairs and called me. Here is what I found….

They all had new sweatshirts. It was their presents to me. I am happy they are proud to wear them. What a great Christmas present!

I have been a Deena Kastor fan for several years. Saturday evening I turned on the TV to cheer her on in the Olympic Marathon. But as you know Deena’s race was cut short just before the first water stop around the 5k mark when she broke her foot.

Here is an interview with Deena about the race and her perspective on her Olympic experience.

Deena is right, we can only prepare. We can’t control the day, the race or the experience. We can only prepare to run the race set out before us and then persevere.

With special permission from my Dad, this post is coming straight from “the daughter.”

I trained, ran, and completed my first half marathon yesterday. (YEAH!!) But, as I look back, the accomplishment was not just crossing the finish line, it was all the training that I did throughout the past 4 months. I  made the decision to run Tom King in November, but I had to decide everyday since then to run, to train, and to lift weights. Essentially, I decided to run Tom King 121 times. And to me, that’s as much of an accomplishment as finishing (if I do say so myself). It is about the journey.

It’s about the conversations that I had with my Dad on long runs–conversations about our week, observations we’ve made, frustrations, running pains, singing “I Feel Good” in the park on mile 7, the funny things that happened, and what it looks like to transition into “real life” with bills and a rent payment. Even on those runs when we didn’t have “meaningful” conversations, it was the “quantity” of time that we spent together, that leant itself to “quality” conversations later in the week, running or not.

It’s about the running metaphors for life–running through the pain, not avoiding it, not letting it get the best of you, just knowing that pain is part of it. –As my Dad told me after a hard run, “Pain is temporary, but quitting lasts forever.”

It’s about being healthy and feeling good about yourself.

It’s about taking your first Goo, putting on your first pair of Balega socks, and eating a Banana at the end of a long run.

It’s about the people that you meet along the way. The people at the Y that know you as the “Half Marathon Girl” because you run in circles on the track for an hour. The friends that ask about your training, I mean really ask and care about your response. The friends and family that get up early on a Saturday morning to cheer and watch you cross the finish line. The buddies that turn around and come back for you after they’ve already finished the race.

And so, to you, I say thank you, because you were part of the journey. You were there with me throughout the journey. You posted comments on this blog, encouraging me. Thank you for the support that you have extended to me throughout this journey.

It has been more than a year now since I first saw the trailer for the movie, Spirit Of the Marathon. I knew then I wanted to see the film.

It made it debut, the weekend of the this year’s Chicago Marathon. Due to travel and other logistics, I was not able to work the screening into my schedule.

Now, it will be released as a one night only special engagement, January 24, 2008.

The film tells the story of six runners as they prepare to the the 2005 Chicago Marathon. Since this was my first Marathon, maybe I’m one of the extras…You never know.

For a list of theaters or to purchase tickets, go to FathomEvents.com.

MarathonGuide.com has published their 2005 overview of marathoning in the USA. There are some interesting numbers in the report. Especially for those in the middle of the pack like me.

There was a 5.9% growth in the number of marathon finishes in the USA in 2005. More than 382,000 marathon finishing times were recorded last year (and I was one of them).

The average age for men was 40.5 with an averge finishing time of 4:32:08. The averge of the women finishers was 36.1 with an average finishing time of 5:06:08. For all runners, the averge age was 38.7 finishing with a time of 4:45:47.

My age group made up 6.22% of the finishers with an average time of 4:37:25. Makes me feel good about this 51 year-old man finishing my first marathon in 4:48! How much more middle of the pack can I be?

For the full report: MarathonGuide.com – 2005 USA Marathon Report

This is the first step toward a blog. Just like starting a run, you have to make the first step out the door….