Part I – My First Running Goal

My path to “committed” running was neither fast nor straight.  It’s not that I couldn’t or didn’t like to run.  My life was just too busy, my priorities were different and there were too many reasons not to run.

In high school, I played golf, hung out and studied a little.  In college, I studied more, partied a lot, and didn’t play any golf.  I was not exactly leading the life of a person concerned about fitness.  Fortunately, weight control was never really a problem for my 5’8” frame.  Fast food and beer belly, maybe, but I was never too overweight.

My lack of physical activity wasn’t helped by growing up in Minneapolis, where outdoors people spend half the year swatting mosquitoes and the other half of the year shoveling snow from their driveways!  However, after graduating from college, I joined a health club and made an attempt to “get into shape.”  My monthly exercise routine included perhaps six trips to the gym and a couple one to three mile jogs.  I never bothered to measure the distance or time my running efforts.  During the 1980’s, this rather feeble routine, at least, kept my body from becoming soft and doughy.  I also moved to Dallas in 1984, giving me different weather issues to complain about, but removing many of my excuses for not exercising year round.

In the first half of the 1990’s, I made subtle changes to my occasional runs that were baby steps toward a running commitment.  I started measuring my runs and wearing a watch, without numbers or a second hand, to get an idea of how much total time my run lasted.  However, no Swiss timing accuracy, pace calculations or journal entries.

I was teased by the “running commitment” for the first time in the summer of 1995 by a confluence of events.  At the time, I was running four miles on a fairly regular basis, two or three times each week.  One evening after work, I went for a rare run with another person.  This co-worker wasn’t tremendously athletic or in super-great shape.  However, he ran a marathon a couple of years prior.  I was impressed by his accomplishment and our running conversation had a real impact. 

Shortly thereafter, on a trip back to Minneapolis, I met a woman who was training for the Twin Cities Marathon.  Again, there were no visible signs that she was capable of such a daunting task.  I made a copy of her training groups’ manual.  Their 16-week marathon training plan didn’t look too impossible.  That evening, I ran seven miles for the first time.  My life was heading in the direction of a running commitment, but I still did not meet my definition of a committed runner, I had not yet set a goal.

Throughout the fall months, I moved all the marathon thoughts to the back of my mind, and continued to run four miles at a time, with no goals and not much concern about my pace.  By the time November rolled around, my wife, Sandra and I decided to participate in a big Dallas Thanksgiving Day tradition, the Dallas YMCA Turkey Trot.  The Trot is Dallas’ biggest running event, drawing over 30,000 people downtown for their pre-turkey exercise.  Most of the crowd participates in the 5K Fun Run/Walk (with their dogs and strollers).  However, 5,000-10,000 runners participate in a more serious eight-mile run.  At the time, I had never run a distance longer than my seven-miler in Minneapolis.  On Thanksgiving Day, 1995, I left the house prepared to run the 5K, with no time goal (although I was wearing my watch with no numbers or second hand). 

Before Sandra went to join the walkers, a half mile back from the starting line and I went to the middle of the crowd of runners, we agreed on a post-race meeting location.  With an adrenaline rush inspired by the all the energy from the loud music and huge crowd, I half-heartedly said, “If you don’t find me under the flags after the 5K, that means I’m running the 8-miler.”

With this very spontaneous, simple statement, I launched my running into a new direction.  During the race I reached the crucial decision point at 2.5 miles.  Rather than turning left and heading to the 5K finish line, I went straight into the uncharted territory of an eight mile run.  I ran slower than usual, and was very tired at the end.  However, I finished the course in 70 minutes and 24 seconds, an 8:48 pace per mile.

While watching the Dallas Cowboys game on Thanksgiving afternoon I wondered, “If I can run eight miles with no training, perhaps I could train for a marathon.”  I dusted off the marathon training plan picked up five months earlier in Minneapolis.  Two days later, I decided to put together a twelve-week plan to train for the Cowtown Marathon in Fort Worth on February 24, 1996.

I had become a committed runner.