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.

Murderball

I just spent a very enjoyable evening hanging out with Mark Zupan, Murderball player and star of the upcoming documentary of the same name. If you haven't heard about it yet - and don't worry, you will - murderball is basically "quad rugby," a fairly vicious game played in ...

Damn

That was an impressive run! The last time I did this basic course, three weeks ago, we ran up Scenic to the top of Mt. Bonnell and back for a bit over 14 miles. This time we did basically the same run, but instead of turning around at the top ...

Interesting Intervals

Despite what I said yesterday, I ended up parking down by RunTex and doing the warmup run to Austin High. There were two reasons for this - first, I was feeling pretty stiff and wanted the full 1.6 mile warmup (if I do it by myself on the track ...

Workout

Today I hit the gym and started things out with my 30 minutes of cardio; this time, following Alex's recent history I did the elliptical machine on level 6 (fairly light) cross training 1 (hill profile), cranking out just over 6,000 steps - that's more than 200/minute. It would ...

400M Circuit

Today's circuit training was a little different than usual, since we were cut down to a 400M recovery run between sets rather than our normal 800M. As always, we started out with our 1.6 mile warmup run - I chatted to Jay on the way over - and went ...

Ten (er, eight) mile pace run

A lot of my marathon training group got the message to meet at 5:45 this morning because we were scheduled to jump from a 7 mile Monday run to a 10 miler (and stay there until NYC). For some reason about 8 of us never heard about it, so ...

Nothin’ Much

I forgot to mention that yesterday I ran myself into a blister on my little toe. This is only the second time I've had a running blister that wasn't just a tiny little one, ending up around 1/2" in diameter and moderately painful. I was wearing my old ...

Dallas is Flat

Even with some steps up and down from the canal, Dallas is a flat place to run. I was in town for Saturday with some friends, but still took the time to go off and do my recovery run; we were scheduled for 10-12 miles, I ended up clocking ...

Survey Says…

Mark tagged me this morning and suggested, in no uncertain terms, that I fill out this running survey, courtesy of Brent. Normally I stay away from these things but, hey, when yer tagged, yer tagged. What is your favorite long run pace? Hmm. My favorite pace would have to vary. ...

4 Mile Tempo

It was another humid day in Austin as we gathered at RunTex for our Thursday workout: a four mile tempo run. I'm in a bit of a hurry, so forgive me and I'll just summarize this one: On the way out to MoPac I started out with a 7:45 ...


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