It slips my mind every now and then that I just didn't pick up one day and start running. And I don't know many runners that have started that way. Becoming a consistent runner was really about running in spurts. Finding the enjoyment after the initial pain.
For me it started in 2006 when my friend, and former high school cross country teammate, Joel, invited me to run the Plainfield Harvest Fest 5K. I put a little training in that summer so I could finish and ended up with a salty 32:33. It was so much fun we decided to do it again the following year. However, this time I pushed off the training and not really having run since the 2006 race I ran a painful half walk half run 5K in 2007 with a time of 36:16. OOF!
Not happy with that time or effort we found another race a month later and I improved a little bit to a 34:07. 3 races into my running career and I still wasn't a consistent running. It was the following year, 2008, that change happened. Nike was promoting this big "Human Race" event where people all over the world were running a 10K on the same day at the same time. It sounded fun and I had found it in early May giving us most of May, June, July and part of August to train. It was a 10K and I knew I couldn't fake that race.
That's when Steph found the Couch to 5K program and we set out to conquer the 10K monster. I can still remember like it was yesterday running on the trail doing the intervals. Steph was in charge of the watch telling me when we run and when we could walk. I kept huffing and puffing complaining asking when it was going to be time to walk again. I think that was during the 90 second run intervals.
We never got up to the 6 miles by the time the race rolled around. I think the most we had run was somewhere in the 4 mile range. I remember that race well. It took us a good 30 minutes to cross the starting line after the gun went off, but once we did we took it out slow and easy. That was the first time Steph and I started a race side by side. The last time was in 2010 when we ran a 1/2 marathon in Utah. It was her first half and I was coming off an injury so I ran it with her, but I digress. It was at the water station when we got separated. She went for water and I lost her in crowd of people. I remember the turn around thinking "great half way" and then the slog fest that was miles 4, 5 and 6. The finish was amazing. I ran for an hour and seven minutes. That blew my mind that I ran for a whole hour. That was it I was hooked. I ran 5 more races that year and 12 the following year and have been a running fool ever since.
I wrote this piece to remind myself that I didn't become a runner overnight and I can't expect everyone to do so. I also wrote this so that if you're reading this and you've tried running and didn't feel like it was for you or you haven't found your groove yet, don't worry. Sometimes it takes a bit. It doesn't have to happen all at once. Enjoy the journey.
