Forums >Running 101>From a slug to a runner - your story!
One day at a time
not bad for mile 25
What is spectacular is the way I feel now, compared to two years ago.
This is the best part about "discovering" running, to me. I've always been young at heart ... but now I actually feel it as well.
And to reinforce it, I'm now thought of as the "runner guy" by my family and friends. I find it very motivating - I never want to have someone look at an older me and say, "Didn't you used to be a runner?"
How To Run a Marathon: Step 1 - start running. There is no Step 2.
Never really an athlete. No high school sports and definitely not running. Lots of time sitting in an office chair in front of a computer. Started running for good on 2 Jan 2005 at age 33, 5' 9.5'' and 187 pounds. Now 38 and 165 lbs. I'll cut and paste my story from a narcissistic blog post (I think that's redundant) I made recently. Pretty much sums up my running in 10 lines. (Numbers in parentheses are the month of the race.) Basically it took me 4 years and ~9,000 miles to go from running 10 miles at 8:29/mile to 6:41/mile.
2005 - 1224 miles 10M - 1:24:49 (4), 20M - 3:06:27 (9), M - 4:49:21 (10), 10k - 50:17 (11), 5M - 38:56 (11)
2006 - 2589 miles M - 4:17:03 (3), 10M - 1:19:25 (4), M - 4:00:03 (5), HM - 1:40:08 (10), M - 3:56:14 (10), M - 3:43:16 (11), 5k - 21:23 (12)
2007 - 2640 miles 5M - 34:20 (1), 1:09:49 (4), M - 3:24:15 (5), 5k - 20:32 (5), HM - 1:33:29 (9), M - 3:27:34 (10), 5k - 20:35 (12)
2008 - 3180 miles 8k - 32:45 (3), 10M - 1:08:49 (4), M - 3:21:50 (5), 5k - 19:49 (5), M - 3:15:22 (11), 5k - 20:15 (12)
2009 - 2303 + 41h59' XT
HM - 1:29:48 (1), 8k - 31:55 (3), 10M - 1:06:43 (4), M - 3:19:01 (4), 10k - 41:47 (10)
blog, training log
Feeling the growl again
I was the slow fat uncoordinated kid, not an athletic bone in my body. But I loved competition and was never satisfied with where I was so I worked really hard. From my first race (2 miles in 29:58) in 7th grade I worked to improve, 12:53 in 8th grade. HS was slow improvement at first until I lost a bunch of weight and cycled constantly one summer, 20:32-19:12-17:22-17:01.
I walked onto a mediocre D-II college team (went there for the academics) and was stagnant for a couple years on relatively low mileage, never broke my HS times. Then my junior year I cc skiied a TON in the winter and came into track taking 2 minutes off my 10K PR (down to 34:18). Senior year did not improve on this but I took 3 sec off my 5K (16:13).
After college I ran my first marathon (2:53). I became a big believer in mileage and worked my tail up, topping 4000 miles in 2003 (15:37 5K, 2:29 marathon). 2004-2005 were stagnant as I fought what turned out to be anemia issues, before I topped 4100 miles in 2006 and had a streak of 16 weeks with only 1 below 100 mpw. Resulted in what was supposed to be a tune-up 10K generating my 5K, 8K, and 10K PRs (15:18, 24:55 and 30:57 respectively). Got injured and "jogged" my goal marathon (2:28).
Family and responsibilities have curtailed things since then. My shorter PRs will never be touched again but perhaps the marathon in a few years.
"If you want to be a bad a$s, then do what a bad a$s does. There's your pep talk for today. Go Run." -- Slo_Hand
I am spaniel - Crusher of Treadmills
The shirtless wonder
I'm interested to see if anybody here had gone from being non-athletic whatsoever to say a sub 3:30 or even sub 3:00 marathoner...i mean those that didn't really run competitively in high school and college...just anybody who late in the game one day got off the couch and said 'i'm gonna start running and i'm gonna get fast and far'. How long did that journey take, etc...
Just about 4 years ago when I started running one mile at any pace was difficult for me. My first marathon was almost exactly three years ago. I ran a 4:18 which is just about a 10 minute per mile pace. One month ago I ran a 3:09. I was 26 when I started running. I was far more interested in weight lifting prior to becoming addicted to running. When I was 22 years old I was able to bench press more than 300 pounds. So technically I wasn't non-athletic but I certainly wasn't a runner in any way shape or form.
I'm thrilled with my progress and hope to keep it going. I've been able to shave about 20 minutes off of my marathon times each year. Unless I work extremely hard I don't think I can hit the 2:50 range. Anything is possible if you work hard enough but I'm not sure I'm willing to put in the work required for that sort of achievement.
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