Introducing Dad

From my dad:
(shared with permission but he doesn't know it's here)

     "It has been twenty years since I last ran a marathon. It was February 3, 1990. I was 37 years old and finished in 3:21:21. Not bad for the start of my second year of running. I started running after talking to a coworker that had just completed the Chicago marathon. He told me all about the race and his training. I told him that it sounded like fun and that I said I would start training for the next year marathon. After laughing he told me that it would take years of training and even then I would have a hard time trying to finish it. That was all I needed to hear. Six months later I ran the Sunburst Marathon in South Bend Indiana in a time of 3:51:16. At the time that was faster than he had ever finished and I believe he still hasn't run that fast. He shouldn't have said I could never do it. I went on to running in local races and marathons off and on for three years. At the time it was all for fun. I wasn't eating the right foods of training very smart.

     Now I'm 57 years old. I am retired and have a lot of time to think about my running days. I always kept detailed log books and I enjoy reading them today. Then it hit me, why not run again, train right, eat right and go for the win. Great idea.

     My plan is the start training today. In less than six months I will do the Inaugural Oakland Marathon and then a month later I will do the Big Sur Marathon. I am already signed up for both of them. Why races in California when I live in Illinois. The last several years I have been taking trips to the bay area to visit my daughter. I love hiking on Mt. Diablo and lately have been thinking it would be fun to be a trail runner. Also, being from Illinois, where there is no hills and it snows all winter, how cool would it be to listed as one of the top finishers in my age group with my name and address listed a long with all the runners from California. I'll be running the two marathons for fun, but it will be the start of something big. When I get home from Big Sur, in the end of April, the weather will be getting better and I will be able to start building my name in my age group in the local races.

    My long term plan is to train and race for the next two and a half years till I turn sixty years old. By then I plan to compete in the senior games and be a top ranked runner in my age group.

    Today I can barely jog a mile. I am five foot eight and 175 pounds. I am going on a very strict diet and will be training daily. Each evening I will post what I have done for the day, how I feel, what I ate and the miles that I run. Once a week I will post the pounds that I lose, the total miles for the week and any milestones that I hit." 

 

So this is the man on the journey with me but he doesn't know, so don't tell him ;-)