He doesn't check in here that often anymore, but Dan the CPA came back to running with the goal of beating his high school self, and he accomplished that.
delicate flower
Interesting thread. I like hearing about how some of you got started so young. Seems like all the free coaching and racing at a young age is something you don't really appreciate until you're older and look back on it.
I started running at 38. My high school gym teacher told me I should try out for track but I just shrugged him off. I wish he would have pushed the issue a little and actually tried to have a conversation with me about it.
<3
Dad on the run.
The school I went to was a small private school with no athletic programs. That led me to being for the most part a couch potato. I was in scouts and loved getting together with friends for a game of softball or flag football but I never wa serious about my health or athletic ability. At 25 I married my wife at that time I was around 220 lbs. After our first child at 26 I was 250 lbs. I decided to do something so I started the c25k along with my wife. That was in may of 2012. I lost down to 194 running and dieting. I'm not fast by any means but I love running and can't see myself stopping.
Chasing the sub 20 5K.
I am in this club. I ran XC and track in high school (middle of the pack), and quit after high school due to knee problems. I didn't run again until fifteen years later. I have run off and on again since my early/mid thirties. I just turned 50 this year.
I agree with Baboon ... this is an interesting thread to see how many ran XC or track in HS. As for me, I was a baseball player in HS and the only running was for punishment (or on the bases). I only started running last March so I guess I took a 44 year - 11 month break before picking up running.
Train smart ... race smarter.
Uffda
I ran the 100m & 400m as Junior in H.S. I sucked.
I took off 12 years. Smoked, drank, ate like crap. I did get married and graduate college. Now I've been running for almost 3 years.
- Andrew
Walk-Jogger
No running in H.S. for me; I was a band student. Marching band was the closest I got to a school sport, though I was a crazy bicycle rider from the age of 4 until still. My younger brother talked me into getting started with running at age 28 to run in a big local annual 12K race, and I kept at it for about 6 years, running about 6 months per year and biking some of the rest, and doing nothing in the winter. Then life got in the way and other than a couple of feeble start-up attempts in my 40's, I basically gained 40 lbs and didn't run or bike much until I was 52. I'm 58 now, weight the same or a bit less than I did at 32, my previous running peak, and I'm not all that much slower now than I was back then, though I train a lot more miles and more seriously now. I still run the same big local 12K race each year and I ran it only about 70 seconds slower at age 57 than I did at age 32 . . . (corrected from 37).
Retired & Loving It
My high school gym teacher told me I should try out for track but I just shrugged him off. I wish he would have pushed the issue a little and actually tried to have a conversation with me about it.
My high school football coach did just that and because I was a captain, I tried out for the track team. To this day, that workout remains the most pain I have ever felt in my life and I have had two root canals, four surgical tooth extractions and got the chicken pox at 31 years old! (any male that got chicken pox as an adult knows what that is like!)
Anyway, I swore I would never run again in my life and I did not until age 42 three years ago. Had my experience not been so bad there is no telling what I could have accomplished all those years.
I had no clue back then, but looking back at it now I think I basically ran a 10k on our indoor track at mile pace! lol
My high school football coach did just that and because I was a captain, I tried out for the track team. To this day, that workout remains the most pain I have ever felt in my life and I have had two root canals, four surgical tooth extractions and got the chicken pox at 31 years old! (any male that got chicken pox as an adult knows what that is like!) Anyway, I swore I would never run again in my life and I did not until age 42 three years ago. Had my experience not been so bad there is no telling what I could have accomplished all those years. I had no clue back then, but looking back at it now I think I basically ran a 10k on our indoor track at mile pace! lol
Fortunately, our XC/Track coach was a runner. In fact, he was an ultra runner and a streaker. I remember him running 129 miles in a 24 hour race and then going out the next day and running two miles so he wouldn't miss a day. He hadn't missed a day in several years. This was in the late 70's before the Internet and sites like this that enable that kind of behavior. He always ran the same workout we did in the reverse direction.
I didn't do shit in high school except start smoking at the age of 15 and I kept up that habit for the next 30 years. Averaged about two packs a day. In the interim, I also put on about 80 pounds. In March, 2007, having no idea what I was doing, I started running and started losing weight. Didn't quit smoking. I thought the way to get better was to run harder every time. That worked for a few months until I hurt myself and couldn't run for over four months and lost all of my fitness plus put back some of the weight I lost. I started again in March, 2008 a bit wiser about what I was doing but still hadn't quit smoking. That happened in June, 2008.
I am now 51 years old and have a 5K PR of 18:33, a HM PR of 1:25:58 and a marathon PR of 3:08:31. My point is that even if you abuse your body for a very long time, you can make big fitness gains if you work hard at it and are both consistent and persistent.
Short term goal: 17:59 5K
Mid term goal: 2:54:59 marathon
Long term goal: To say I've been a runner half my life. (I started running at age 45).
I ran XC junior and senior year in HS (fall of '93 and '94). Junior year I sucked. Senior year I was faster, but plagued by shin splints and never could vie for 1st or 2nd man; it was always 3rd. No one told me why neutral shoes might be wrong for my stride.
For about 2 years after HS I still trained with some structure and raced occasionally. From there on out, it was only casual running for fitness.
In 2005, I entered a race just because it was close to home and a nice day. I ran a 19:47 5K and figured that wasn't too far off my HS times, so racing again took a back seat.
2011, I realized that I was not in proper shape to do the hiking I wanted to do, and so went back to training with a goal. Found the RWOL forums googling a shoe issue. Decided to race again and was hooked after turning in a 18:45 or so and feeling very fast.
Fast forward to that same race from 2005 in 2013. PR of 16:57, never having sniffed sub-18 in HS.
I remember my coach telling us "this is probably the best shape you'll ever be in, so make the most of it." Nonsense.
Thanks for all the stories.
I think one of the key things for me is the amount of pain I'm willing to endure now vs then. In HS it was clear to me (rightly or wrongly) from the first race that I was never going to be one of the top runners. And who really cares if you're 10th or 15th? I don't remember being willing to endure the sort of discomfort I did for that 30:54* last weekend. I just tried to keep up with whatever girl my coach told me too, and didn't really feel bad if I couldn't.
Hmm. I've been saying 30:54, but the official time was 30:53.4, so I really should be rounding down, right? Not that I'm obsessed or anything.
Are we there, yet?
Unfortunately the rule is to round up for the official time. Times to the tenth of a second are used only to illustrate time differences between finishers, i.e. to show order of finish among those with the same official time. In those unfortunate cases where the seconds are 59.x, the official time rounds up to the next minute, e.g. 29:59.2 rounds to 30:00 officially.
2024 Races:
03/09 - Livingston Oval Ultra 6-Hour, 22.88 miles
05/11 - D3 50K 05/25 - What the Duck 12-Hour
06/17 - 6 Days in the Dome 12-Hour.
I'm another with a 'never been there' story.
Gym was required for only one year for me in HS. The entire class was graded on how fast you could run laps around a track. I was 14 and didn't know there was another way; I took off at the same speed as everyone else, could only keep up for 100-200m before I was walking and had to jog/walk the rest of the gym period. My coaches just assumed I was lazy. None of them every made a single suggestion to help me. I got a D in that class and I think my best time for the presidential mile test was a 14: xx.
Yep.
A little older and a little wiser (and, thanks to the internet, more able to seek out information), I started running for fitness in my 20s. Last year at age 30 I ran a mile in under 7:00-- literally twice as fast as I ever did in high school.
It took me a long time to develop that base level of aerobic fitness I never really had (I was a nerd who didn't even like to go outside during recess, and would have sat inside reading if they had let me).
Give yourself some time and I bet you will get there-- you have come a long way in a pretty short period of time since you started running again. Get to sub 30:00 and start thinking about sub 29:00. Then start thinking about sub 28. Just keep setting goals for yourself and work at knocking them down. Wherever you end up, it's faster than you were this time last year, right?
race obsessed
Interesting thread. I like hearing about how some of you got started so young. Seems like all the free coaching and racing at a young age is something you don't really appreciate until you're older and look back on it. I started running at 38. My high school gym teacher told me I should try out for track but I just shrugged him off. I wish he would have pushed the issue a little and actually tried to have a conversation with me about it.
I started at 38 also...
However, I 'went out' for track in 6th grade and the coach blew me off. I didn't want to play football (and I was too small) so he had no time for any other interests. F him - 30 years later and I still want to punch him in his shit... (he was a dick on top of it all - and still is)