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.

Framingham Repeats

I met up with Steve - our Sr. VP of sales - today to try to get some 800M repeats in. He was scheduled for 880s, I had 800s, but the difference was small and we couldn't find a convenient track anyway, so we headed out to a nearby ...

Travel Kills the Best Intentions

I flew into PVD at a reasonable hour last night, which would have let me get to my hotel, have a decent amount of sleep, go running in the morning (seven mile recovery), and still make my meeting. Unfortunately, my luggage didn't get in until a very unreasonable hour ...

Recovery Strides

Just like we did after our last twenty miler, the plan this morning was to do seven miles nice and easy, followed by about ten minutes of acceleration strides. I kept a very easy pace for the run, jogging with Jason, and the strides felt really nice afterwards. ...

2000M Intervals

This was not one of my best performances. We met up at the normal time and headed over to the Zilker soccer fields for a repeat of the same practice that I enjoyed so much the last time we did it, just after running Dublin. Time   8:53   8:24 ...

Seven Mile Recovery

Another Tuesday, another seven mile loop of the lake with Frank and Sean in really awful conditions: low seventies, fine, but when will the 95% humidity go away?. Continuing our tradition of changing it up, we headed off counter clockwise and started chatting about this and that. It ...

Ick - that was a pace run?

Its obvious in retrospect that even with not running last Saturday, I was pretty beat today. We were supposed to do a two mile warmup followed by eight miles at our goal marathon pace. This gave me my first difficulty - the guys I was running with were ...

2005 Muddy Buddy

You know, I really hadn't been taking this race too seriously. Everyone assured me that the biking was no big deal, and I figured that my Gazelle training would be more than sufficient for the running portion. I was right, and wrong, but still had a fantastic time. ...

Didn’t Happen

I was supposed to run 14 miles this morning. Got up early and everything. Then I was pointedly reminded that I'd been getting up early every day this week, and that sometimes there are reasons to skip workouts. And that's all I've got to say about that.

2005 Moonlight Margarita 5K

I'd agreed to a bit of volunteer work for this race; that's why I found myself down on the trail in full work gear at 5:30pm with a pair of scissors, taking down the race banner from in front of our sponsor, Milago condominiums. I'm always amazed as to ...

1000M Repeats

When I got to the track this morning, I was more than a little concerned that I wouldn't have a very good time today. The last time I did these, six weeks ago, I ranged from a 4:31 to a 4:14 over four repetitions. This time, my coach ...


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