On Running

Over 25 years ago, I ran high school cross country and track in Indiana. I did this for the first two years of high school. I never thought of myself as very fast, but I did run a 4:58 mile my sophomore season, and looking back, that seems blisteringly fast now. In my junior year, I quit cross country and track to focus on my primary sport, swimming. This propelled me to college, where I swam four years at Wabash College. I continued to run, mainly for basic exercise, but not on a regular basis.

Source: Martinsville Reporter, 1990.

Source: Martinsville Reporter, 1989. That's me in the middle.

Around two to three years ago, I started to get back into running as I neared the milestone 40th birthday. This was a good way to stay in shape with my travels and to see various cities during meetings. I found a regular group of friends to run with, and this helped quite a lot. In 2013 I entered the Alexandria Turkey Trot, my first road race in about 20 years. This was a blast, even though I was running in the cold with nearly 5000 other people. In 2014 I stepped up my running, and made some modest goals to enter another road race in 2015, with an eye toward potentially running a half-marathon.

2015 has exceeded my expectations. I entered my first 10 mile race since 1990 when I ran the GW Parkway 10 Mile in April.  This encouraged me to try for a half-marathon, which I completed in September with the Navy Air Force Half. Last week I ran the 40th Alexandria Turkey Trot, setting a post-40 personal best time of 41:06 in the 5 mile run.

For 2016, I am aiming to better my half-marathon time and try to run one under 2 hours. I also want to run a marathon at some point during the year, and am currently looking for a potential race that does not conflict with upcoming travel. Or maybe, I'll be able to travel to a marathon. Perhaps Chicago in July, Reykjavik in August, or NYC. In the near term I am looking forward to running with the Blacklist LA folks in early January and running again in Istanbul as well.