I watched the Boston Marathon for years from age 9 but never thought me running 26.2 was possible. 1 night after a grad school class a friend told us that it wasn't as hard as I thought, and that he got a few mutual friends through it all. Another guy who was there that night had the same impression, and we ended up running our first few together including Boston.

Almost 10 years ago I visited the Grand Canyon with family.  I had seen it from the top dozens of times.  My 12 year old daughter asked me how long it would take to get to the bottom and up to the other side.  I replied, "No idea but I guess a day to get to the bottom and another day to go up the other side."  One thing I was sure of is that I would never do something like that.  This was my pre-running days and I didn't even know there was such a thing as running through the Grand Canyon.

Fast forward to 10/5/2014.  I completed Rim 2 Rim 2 Rim in less than 14 hours.  After completing it I reminded my daughter of the time she asked me about how long it would take to get to the bottom and to the other side.  Now I could confidently tell her, "6 hours."

When I (re)started running in 2007 at age 52 I was nearly 40 lbs overweight. I didn't think I would ever run a mile under 7:00 minutes again. It didn't take me very long (8 weeks?) to get s single mile under 7:00.

I set my goals on running a half-marathon in under 1:30:00, but wasn't sure I would be able to do it.  It was 4 years before i was able to line up at the start of a half-marathon, but I nailed it in 1:26:00, at age 55. I would have told you before the race that was not possible.

I used to think it would be impossible for me to run a full marathon. I'd get to the end of a half-marathon and could not imagine running a singe step further. Last year I successfully ran my first full marathon in 3:08: xx at age 58.

Early on I set a goal of running a single mile in under 5:30. It took me 3 years of hard work to get there, but I finally did it, and have done it twice more since then, and this past June at age 59 I ran my fastest 1 mile race in 30 years, at 5:25. You can never be sure what you can accomplish until you get out there and work your ass off and see where it gets you.

But I should add this: when I first BQd in my first marathon with a 3:55, I never imagined that I would one day go sub-3:30. Now 3:30 seems like my regular finish time. Two things are different: I run more weekly miles than when I first started marathon training and I have more years of running in my legs (also more marathons under my belt). But like I said, to improve on the 3:30, I'd have to run more and I'm not interested.

Based on age and results, I'd say that Cecil is the fastest around here.  Well done.

 

I'm a bit like wcrunner in that I have never had goals that I thought were impossible. I always choose my goals based on my present training and I usually hit them or come within a few minutes of them if I'm not lucky on race day. I have no dream goals, because I know exactly what it would take for me to make those dreams come true and I'm simply not motivated enough to do the work necessary to get there. When I'm really motivated, I can run 70 mpw and hit 80 a few times during a cycle. But that's it. Nothing more. To accomplish something really fantastic for me, I'd have to run more and it would just not make me happy. So no dreams for me, and no regrets either.

Anyone who goes after and achieves a goal that they are unsure of or thinks is impossible for them is a winner. We can't all be the fastest, but we can all go after our own personal best, and throw some hard work and smarts at it and see what happens. I'm not the fastest old guy around here anymore, if ever I was; I'm rapidly slowing down at the moment and becoming a beginner runner again. I'll be starting from scratch next year, and a lot of you good folks will be faster than I am, for a while at least.