Running Towards Fitness

Personal Awareness
The ancient Greeks used to believe that a healthy mind and a healthy body not only went together, but were both critical for happiness and a successful life. They were also intertwined, meaning that a weakness in either area would affect the other. When I started this transformation I was overweight and full of excuses. And by overweight I don't mean just a few pounds - I weighed over 70 pounds more than I do now. I finally took my life into my own hands and started exercising. At the time, I had no idea where it would lead - to a stronger body, a happier, more nimble mind, and a chest full of race medals. Healthy mind, healthy body, indeed! It hasn't been easy, or without issues, but I wouldn't trade the experience for the world.

Weekly total

Tuesday: 5 Wednesday: 2.5 Thursday: 7.75 Saturday: 9.6 Total: 24.85 Workouts: 1 upper body No running on Sunday - Mother's day kinda got in the way. But that's alright. The total for the week is pretty respectable anyway, at least compared to the crap I managed during April. No running tomorrow either, since ...

Post Chuy’s run

After hanging around for an hour or so after the race, doing some stretching talking to friends, and eating three Krispy Kreme donuts (less than one per mile), it was time to head back. Alex ran with me for the first mile as a cooldown run, and we did ...

2004 Chuy’s 5K

Well, its a good thing that I drove this course before running it, because it really wasn't very similar to either the way it was described on the forum, or the way it looked on my topological maps. Steep hills (up/down, mostly up) for the first quarter, sure, but ...

Upper Body

Took a late lunch and hooked up with Marcus for the Friday Workout. We went back to the basics, and had a pretty good time - we decided to stay with dumbells for the most part. So after a quick 10 minute elliptical warmup (137 cal) I did: ...

Planning for Chuy’s

Alright, so the Chuy's 5K is tomorrow. Planning a strategy for this race has been pretty difficult. I've been ignoring my calf soreness, assuming that it will have faded by tomorrow morning; I sure hope that it will have gone away. I'm not doing any running today, ...

My calves are aching today!

Today was interval day with the Gazelles, and I did not produce the kind of numbers I was looking for. Still, the conditions were a little different the last time I did speedwork by myself. We started out like last time, running over to AHS from RunTex; this time we ...

That’s my pup

Didn't I decide last time not to run with Bear in the neighborhood, just the park? Oh, well. We did a nice 3.2 mile loop, but there was just too much going on in the way of smells for him to be focused. There are no sidewalks ...

Puppy Pictures

As requested, I'm taking a break from the strictly fitness-oriented tone of this weblog to post some puppy pictures. The first two are of Bear, our four and a half year old black lab: Isn't he cute? As you can see, he knows that waiting by my running shoes ...

Playing with the Schedule

Alright, now that I'm doing two intense speed workouts every week, the schedule I'd done before isn't going to work for me. Not that I was following it very closely anyway... So. I have my workouts on Tuesday and Thursday. These will average 5-6 miles each with a ...

Pace Thoughts

I just realized that my warmup pace today is faster than my 5K PR pace - it would give me a 26:28 for that distance, or a PR by almost 20 seconds. And I certainly feel that I could have kept it up for another 15 minutes or so ...


About

I'm Richard Stanford, a fit, happy runner. Of course, that wasn't always the case. Dip into the archives to follow my progress from couch potato to sub-four hour marathoner.

I also like to cook, write, code, and play with power tools...

Personal Records

DistanceRaceTimePace
Marathon2006 Freescale3:54:078:56
20 Miles2006 RunTex3:00:089:00
30K2005 RunTex2:42:448:45
Half M2006 3M1:42:577:51
20K2005 Decker1:40:428:06
10 Miles2005 Pervasive1:20:138:01
10K2005 Dublin Dr Pepper48:437:51
5 Miles2005 Turkey Trot37:017:24
5K2005 Margarita Run22:327:15
4K2006 Fila Relays17:247:15
1 Mile2006 Congress Ave6:236:23

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May 20th 2007
Tags: Running, Races

One Comment

2007 North Trail Half Marathon

I'll start out by saying that this wasn't a PR.  Not even close.  It was, however, a really fun race, taking place in the middle of a fun weekend, surrounded by fun friends. Fun! Going into it I knew that I wasn't going to PR.  To be honest, I was more than ...
May 19th 2007
Tags: Running

No Comments

Update

Well, so much for keeping the blog current, eh? I've been doing pretty well, most of the time. I'm currently in Dallas just a few hours away from running in a small half marathon (400 people, give or take) - and I've only managed to get up to 10.5 miles ...
April 10th 2007
Tags: Running

No Comments

Lunchtime Ladera

This was my third time to run Ladera Norte, and its actually getting easier.  I walked once, about 3 minutes into the hill, for a minute (timed), then ran the rest of the way.  Not that I was fast - the remainder took me a solid 5 minutes - but I ...
March 4th 2007
Tags: Running, Races

9 Comments

2007 BagelFest 5K

I'm very glad that I did this race.  I almost didn't - the idea of doing something where I know that I wasn't going to come close to a PR was not terribly enticing - but I've done it every year since I started running, and its been a whole ...
March 1st 2007
Tags: Running

One Comment

Unplanned 3 Miler

Well... I know that I said that I wasn't goint to run today... but I did anyway.  You see, at lunch today Thon offered to run his 3 mile hill loop with me this evening.  Naturally I stuck to the gameplan and told him that I wasn't running until Saturday.  ...
February 27th 2007
Tags: Running

One Comment

Rollingwood Revisited

I went to Rollingwood for the second time - or at least the second time since my recovery - and while ended up running a slightly different course due to inattention, it was a fantastic run.  Last time I averaged a 9:41 pace (9:54, 9:30, 9:46) around the hills, and it felt ...

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Famous Marathon Times

RunnerTimePace
Al Gore4:58:2511:23
Oprah4:29:3010:17
P. Diddy4:14:549:43
Will Ferrell3:56:129:01
George W. Bush3:44:528:35
John Edwards3:30:188:01
Carrie Sapp3:29:067:59
Boston Qualifier3:10:597:17
Lance Armstrong2:59:366:51
Gilbert Tuhabonye2:23:075:28
Paula Radcliffe2:15:255:10
Paul Tegat2:04:554:46

People I Train With

Alex - Addicted to Exercise
Carrie - Tri to be Funny
Erine - Thousand Miles
Frank - Running Blog
Gilbert - Gilbert's Gazelles
Jay - Leotian Blog
Mike - BROTH