I never was a fast kind of person. I remember in fourth grade, our church started a Christian school. My fourth grade class consisted of 4 boys and no girls. Our teacher taught the third grade as well. But on field day, the 4 of us boys competed against each other. In the foot race events, I consistently placed third. The first two boys were more athletic than I, and they ran faster. The fourth boy was a little bit overweight, so he ran slower. And there I was in the middle.
Despite my lack of athletic ability, I played sports, which was possible because of the small Christian school. I played basketball (until the 10th grade when my coach told me that he appreciated my efforts and spirit, but I just didn't have the talent to end up with much playing time -- guess with a small school, you can't just cut players off the team) and I played soccer. In basketball, besides the millions of laps we did around the gym, we ran suicides, which are those lovely sprints from the baseline to the foul line, back to the baseline, to the mid court, and back and forth more times than you really cared for. Soccer introduced me to running suicides on a larger scale (the length of the soccer field) and also to running around the park on the 1 mile trail. I usually finished last. In fact, in soccer I taught myself to kick with my left foot, just so that I could play left wing on the front line and not have to run so much in the halfback position (I knew I was too small to play fullback).
Anyway, ran some in college, but not really much until I hooked up with a group who would run 2 or 3 days a week. They ran 5k distances at a 10 minute pace, and I was surprised how easy it was the first time. Once we ran a 10k distance, and I thought I was going to die! They left me in the dust that time. I kind of on and off started running on my own 3 miles at a time.
After college, I continued with the on and off method (more off than on) until last year when my brother was in Baghdad with the Army. He had run the Baghdad version of the Army 10 Miler in the previoius fall, but his big run happened in February 2007. There he ended up running the Baghdad version of the Austin Marathon. Even though he had only really trained for the half. It's really a long story. Anyway, he shuffled and limped to the end and finished in under 5 hours. He really injured himself, but the fact that he did it inspired me. I had just started back into my "on" phase of running again, but now I really turned it on.
I ended up running my first 5k in April 2007 ... a rather rugged trail run over hill and dale and I finished in 25:51. I kept on running and ran a rather flat 5k in July and did it in 25:11. I bought shoes and met running friends and ran somewhat faithfully for the rest of the year. I bought Runners World and kept on getting inspired.
When I changed jobs this past year, my regular schedule kind of fell off, but I did start to inspire my wife to run. She walks more than she runs, but I did get her to do the trail 5k with me this April. We made her goal of under 45 minutes! I'm so proud of her. Now I'm trying for my first 10k. Despite a training setback due to allergy triggered asthma, I'm still going for it. I think I'm hooked.
All the time before I kept telling myself that I never really liked running. But it's too late now ... it's in my blood. It's not about the competition, because I'm not a really competitive person. It's about the accomplishment. It's the satisfaction. It's what it has done for helping me control my weight. It's the time I get to kind of meditate as I hit the pavement one step at a time. I may still not be that fast, but I can say that I'm a runner.
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