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.

October 2004

Running: 92 Spin: 3 Workouts: 4 Well, I didn't quite hit the 100mpm mark again this month. One of these days I'll get back on the stick and make it happen. Actually I should be doing more like 140-150mpm by now. The new schedule will probably help things out, and ...

New shoe running

Well, I picked up some new shoes - Asics Gel Landreth to be precise. They felt nice and cushiony when I ran them in the store and parking lot, with lots of toe room - but I want to give them a couple of nice treadmill runs before they ...

The long loop

My schedule had me down for thirteen miles at a 9:30 pace today. I only managed to get 11.5 in, but I'm alright with that (this time). I decided to do my run down on the Town Lake trail; it had been too long since I'd taken advantage of this ...

Spin

Just got back from another good hard spin class with Jenn. Lots of climbs, and some "mountain bike" work - fast switches from high load seated, to higher load standing, to fast downhills, repeated repeatedly. Fun. Now its back to work.

Upper Body

I didn't have much time this week, so we did a pretty basic upper body workout today. No machines, we stayed purely with free weights. Dumbell bench: 20x35lbs, 17x40lbs, 8x45lbs each Kneeling row: 3 sets of 10x45lbs each Skull crushers: 3 sets of 10x45lbs single bar Bicep curls: 3 sets of 10x25lbs each Shoulder ...

Rethinking the Schedule

I may make a change to the new schedule to try to space my speed components out a little better, and to get all of my running into the mornings, when its cooler. This is what I'm looking at right now, but I'm still playing with it: Morning (6am)LunchEvening (varies) Monday:lower body gym-spin ...

800m Intervals

After my one mile warmup, I only managed to do four 800m intervals before they started closing down the fitness center. I talked them into 10 more minutes to do a cooldown, but only logged four miles for the evening. I guess I could have gone to the ...

90 Minute Elliptical

Does that sound boring? Well, it wasn't scintillating I can tell you that much. It was made worse because I did it at the Gold's on 290, which doesn't have music playing in its treadmill/elliptical room. The good news was that it was simple - just set ...

Donuts Anyone?

Not that I'm planning on doing it, but I just had to pass it along: Its time for the 2004 Tour de Doughnut!

New Schedule

Well, its been a while, and I've been doing a lot of thinking and adapting of my training schedule - and its only reasonable that I share it with y'all. Basically, I'm going to be simplifying it quite a bit. Every weekday will be exactly the same from ...


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