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.

August 2004

Running: 38 Biking: 32 Swimming: 200m Workouts: 4 Most of the month was spent not running due to my MCL sprain. That's all but healed, although I still have some strength issues that I need to deal with. I could have been swimming, biking, and going to the gym while I was ...

Canine Fartleks

First, let me just say that today I had planned to do some 400s on the treadmill, just to see how they felt. However, the weather was beautiful and for once my wife and I both had the opportunity to get home at a reasonable hour - all three ...

Short and simple

On Sunday, my schedule has me doing "race pace" runs. The purpose of these runs is to train my body to adapt to race-like conditions. That means no stopping, no walking, and a constant pace - but I can and will take Gu or other supplements if I ...

Weekly total

Monday: .5 Tuesday: 1.5 Wednesday: 3.5 Thursday: 2 Saturday: 5 Total run: 12.5 Workouts: 1 My two mile run on Thursday was done at my previous 5K pace and felt great, even on a treadmill (and I really dislike running on a treadmill, especially in a hot room). The five-miler on Saturday was the longest I'd ...

Another decision

I don't think that I'll be doing AustinFIT this year after all. My runs aren't really lining up well with their schedule, and I know enough people who will be down on the trails that I don't think finding long run partners will be a problem. Also, my ...

Decision

I don't need to be doing a 5K race today. Having decided that, I went out this morning to do a 5 mile run instead. My only goals were that I wasn't going to take any walk breaks, and that I was going to do my best to keep the ...

Resting

Today is a rest day, and I'm going to rest. Tomorrow is another story. There's a race in town, the Keep Austin Weird 5K. Its also the start of the AustinFIT marathon training season. In the morning, I can go down and do my two mile ...

Great two mile run

Well, I had two miles on the schedule for today, so two miles it was - pretty late too, after a birthday dinner for a very good friend of mine at Roy's. I was near the office and had to stop back to do some end-of-day work anyway, so ...

Running Calculator

I just re-discovered the running calculator at McMillanRunning.com. Very cool. Doing a little math, I pulled up the correct sheet for my current goal time at Freescale - check it out here. Now, those times are pretty fast, for me, but fairly realistic as far as where I thought ...

2004-05 Marathon Training

This is the training schedule that I'm going to be working from, which started out as one of the Hal Higdon schedules although I've upped the speedwork on Tuesdays and Thursdays to match my normal schedule. Geez, I must be nuts! Anyway, I'll continue to update it over ...


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