20 Years of Running: How the Hell Did I Miss That?

I somehow totally missed the 20th anniversary of when I started running: October 28th, 1991. That's the date I started. Well, I ran track in high school and such, but I didn't keep it up in college. Besides, doing it for a sport is different than doing it for yourself.

There was no special reason. My roommate at the time was training for his first marathon, so maybe I was just sort of seeing his runs and decided to start again. I gained some weight in college, lost it when I took a year off to teach high school in the Virgin Islands and was worried about starting to gain it back. In the end, I am still not sure what the dominant factor was that first day.

It was a Monday. I went to the IM East building at Michigan State after my last class. I started running on the indoor track, 9 laps to a mile. Did two miles that first day. A couple weeks later, I added a round on the Nautilus machines a couple of days a week. It was a bit of stop and go at first of course. I took time off over Christmas Break when the building was closed for a week or so.

But I kept running inside over the winter. By March, I was up to about 3.5 miles a day. I switched to running over lunch in the spring semester since my class schedule changed. One day I went out for a run outside...one day and I would never go back to indoor running again. In early April, my first 5k race. Did several of them. By late June, I signed up for and ran my first 10k, the Diamondal Dam Run (with a literal shotgun start from the local sheriff). The first Sunday of November was the Williamston Half-Marathon. I decided that was close to the one year anniversary of starting to run and that would be my celebration. I ran that cold half marathon, about 30 degrees out, 25 mph winds, freezing rain that had turned the dirt country roads to mud. Not exactly ideal conditions for the first one, but I did it...and knew I would be back next year.

Okay, skipped an important day. the Monday before the Williamston race, I went out for my last long training run. Near sunset. I hit the turnaround right at sunset and really hit my first big runner's high. Don't feel myself hit the ground once those last six miles.

I kept running outside all winter. By now, it was a lifestyle. Ran dozens of races. Kept that up when I moved to Florida. 1997 was the first Disney Marathon which was almost derailed when I got the chicken pox less than two months before the race. At the end of the race, I knew I would be back next year, and have been back every year since (and am training for January 2012).

I run everywhere I go in all types of weather. I don't have quite the high end speed I did 20 years ago, but still do pretty well for what I have to work with. I didn't keep good logs the first couple of years, but based on the ones I have, my lifetime total should be pushing 35,000 miles.

I am fortunate my health has held up (more because of running rather than in spite of it). I have a few odd injuries here and there...sprained ankles for bad steps, an occasional fall with some scrapes and bruises, occasional sore muscles, but the worst have always been non-running related (take the auto accident last year for example). I have added more gym work as the years have gone on, but I just can't imagine what life would be like without my time on the road each day. Doing the best to be sure I can run for the rest of my life.