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.

Good news and bad news

The good news is that my knee is doing much better. As of now, I have a new set of exercises to do. I'm also allowed to:Go to the gym and do everything except knee raisesUse the elliptical trainersUse a stationary bikeUse my real bike - high cadence, ...

Little Run

My knee is feeling a whole lot better, and I can bend to about 100 degrees without pain, but all I feel up to doing is walking. Which we did a lot of today at the Luling Watermelon Thump (of which I had to skip the 5K - ah, ...

2004 Urban Assault Race

This is going to be long since I have to describe the route that we took as I go. The basic challenge for this bike race was for a team of two (in my case that included my good friend Marcus) to visit 10 checkpoints in any order we ...

Knee status

Well, I just got back from the doctor's office. I actually saw Dr. Hutchens since my regular doc, Dr. McCarty, is off with the UT athletics baseball team. The verdict? I have sprained my MCL, the ligament running along the inside of my leg. I also ...

Knee Issues

The urban assault race was a whole lot of fun until the final obstacle course, where I twisted my knee climbing up a 15 foot wall and, possibly, reinjured it (I had surgery back in '95). I'm going to see the doctor first thing tomorrow morning, and I promise ...

Mt. Bonnell

This was a bit of a test for me to make sure that I hadn't lost too much endurance while I've been focussing on my speedwork. I parked down by Deep Eddy and stretched for a while, getting nice and limber. My plan was to meet up with ...

Rest Day

Today is a rest day. I'm not even going to go to the gym and work upper body like I should. I'm taking it off. Well, not from working - I'm doing a lot of working today - but I'm going to stay sitting down, feed my ...

Pre-riding leg two

We met up at 7pm and did about 14 miles today, a little more than half of the total race distance for Sunday and including both of our long stages. It took us two hours, but that was riding slowly and doing some backtracking with lots of pauses to ...

1000m Recap

I was taking a quick break and checking out your comments - too kind by far - and realized that today was the second time I'd done 1000m intervals. To recap, this was my time a few hours ago: Time: 4:41 - 4:51 - 4:51 - 4:49 - 4:46 Pace: 7:32 ...

Training Comments

My current schedule keeps my speedwork on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, something I'm planning on sticking with year-round, and has a relatively sane ramp-up onto longer distances. It also has three twenty-milers, something that I feel will really help me get more comfortable with that distance. I decided to shoot for around ...


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