There is this little 2 mile course I do when I am doing my “last warm up run” before a race that I am aiming for. For Peoria people: jog down Cooper St. past Bradley Ave. to Moss, turn left on Moss and run to MacArthur and then retrace my route. It is about 2.05 miles.
Way back in 1983-1984, it took me 24-25 minutes to do this course; I weighed 230-240 lb. and it was an effort. I huffed and puffed…but that was better than the 36 minutes it used to take me to walk 2 miles when I was 320 lb.
Anyway, this little warm up workout reminds me of where I came from, and no matter how poorly tomorrow goes, I cannot forget my progress. Of course, I have no intention of having a poor race. 🙂
It looks as if the weather will be good for it, and so I have no excuses. (half marathon: C goal is sub 2:20, B goal is sub 2:15 and A goal is sub 2:10…my real goal is to run the whole way and finish with a bit of dignity. Key is to keep the pace easy for the first 5 miles).
And all of this reminds me of a couple of 23:xx 5Ks I ran. Back in 1985, I was a first year graduate student at the University of Texas. I lifted weights regularly and had worked up to a bench press of 310 lb. at 230 lbs. I still ran 2-4 miles fairly regularly. I noticed there was a 5K race on the campus of St. Edwards University and that it finished in plenty of time for me to make the Texas Longhorns football game that day. So I entered and ran it in 23:00 (I recorded my time). Little did I know that this was to be my last running race for about 11 years.
In between: I was able to get my Ph. D, get a job, and gain about 90 lbs, and subsequently lose to about 185 in 1996. By then I was doing those little 2-3 mile runs and I decided to enter an on-campus 5K to test my fitness. It took me 23:15 to do and I finished “sort of in the pack” of mostly students. Yes, I wore high top basketball shoes!
When I walked home after the race..I …cried. Really. I was FINALLY “back home”, so to speak..and I’ve been doing races regularly every since. Since then I worked my way down to the high 19’s for the 5K, to a 3:38 marathon (and yes, a 1:34 half), a 100 mile walk (23:40) and then have declined…badly. Now, a sub 28 5K counts as “good” for me. Whatchagonnado???
Anyway, time to dig out my long distance race stuff (electrolyte tablets, clothes and socks I want to wear, etc.) as I haven’t done a long race since October 2018.
workout notes: easy 2 mile jog, 1 mile walk, stretching…knee stretching.
Life of an old goat 