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.

More on the Marathon

I don’t have my mile-by-mile results off my watch yet, but I wanted to pull out my official results from the marathon website. My final position was #1962 out of 6330, and I placed 218th out of 443 people in my age group, which means I cracked the top 50%.

Timing Mat   Time   Distance   Pace   Total Time   Overall Place
10K 52:50 6.214 8:30 52:50 1697
Half   1:00:53 6.896 8:50   1:53:43 1611
Turnaround 38:56 3.891   10:00 2:32:39 1751
5K left 1:08:17 6.112 11:10 3:40:56 1875
Finish 30:59 3.107 9:58 4:11:55 1962

Miles 17-23 were the slowest by far. This was a pretty demoralizing period of time for me, and it shows. I’m happy that I was able to get my last 5K down under a 10:00 mile though, especially since that’s when my cramping started to hit.

I do have one picture to share. This was taken at about mile 26. Normally my legs bend a lot more at the knees when I run, this is the cramping showing:

And finally, thanks to each and every one of you for your kind comments! I will do an extended entry sometime later this week with all the gory details.

Popularity: 6%

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

Sponsors

  • Amazon - Books, gear, and more
  • Dreamhost - Cheap reliable hosting
  • iTRAIN - Downloadable MP3 workouts
  • Shoes.com - Good prices on athletic shoes, gear
        NEW! Use code GIVE10OFF for a 10% discount!

Activity

8 total comments, leave your comment.
  1. I personally am looking forward to reading the gore! Congratulations … awesome job!

  2. Didn’t you say there was rain? Looks like sunshine to me. :)

  3. Leilani
    Feb 15th 2005
    8:32 AM

    Hi Richard, you’re right. It was awful race conditions. Great job toughing it out through the cramps and blisters! It was nice to meet you and your wife and hopefully we’ll get to see you at another race in the future. Take care of those feet and sore legs. :)

    Leilani

  4. There are a few photos, including rain, here:

    http://www.statesman.com/sports/content/sports/photos/021405_marathon/photo10.html

    Username: fool
    Password: fool
    Email: fool@hotmail.com

  5. v
    Feb 15th 2005
    5:16 PM

    Thanks for pointing out the Statesman’s photo gallery — very nice! I think you look pretty strong in that picture, especially for mile 26. You’re a force of nature, Richard!

  6. Dan
    Feb 16th 2005
    7:06 AM

    Richard,

    Well done, that’s a great performance anyway, more so considering the hardships you faced. Even if it’s not quite the result you wanted, hopefully you can learn from it (what, I’m not sure… that’s for you to ponder!)

  7. Ken
    Feb 16th 2005
    4:58 PM

    Congrats on the race!

    I have a question about the split distances that you listed. Are the distances listed at doitsports just approximations? (mi 23.5 is acually 26.2 - 3.107 ?) That would explain some of the inconsistencies that I’ve noticed with the doitsports stats.

  8. Well, I’m pretty sure that the last pad was placed at the 5K-to-go point. There’s no easy way to list that in their grid though since its all done assuming distance-from-start. When in doubt, you can email raul -at- run-far -dot- com for specifics, since they provide the timing services, set up the mats, et cetera.


Leave a Reply


Search

Search the archives by entering keywords or topic strings.

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