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.

Eesh

Well, I just spent much of the day not feeling particulaly great -- some stomach issue or another.  Now I'll be spending much of the evening doing the work that I had hoped to do today.  This will, I'm sure, have an impact on my tempo times tomorrow, if I ...

Core Workout #3

Second week, er, different from the first.  Somewhat.  What was the same?  Pull-ups to start, chin-ups to finish, and a goofy half mile warmup/cooldown run.  We started with plank, as usual, and finished out with curb climbers.  What changed?  Well, to start with Carrie joined me for some mutual abuse ...

Wilke Not so Bad

I know, isn't it amazing? Getting up 15 minutes earlier to be at RunTex for a 5:45 start, now, that sucked. But while Wilke itself was hard, it wasn't the soul-destroying workout it has been in times passed. We did the long warmup which is, oh, 2 1/2 miles or ...

“Recovery” run

The purpose for today's run was to recover before a difficult week next week; we're doing Wilke on Monday, a "tempo race" on Wednesday, and 16-18 miles on Saturday.  What does Gilbert consider a good recovery run?  Well, apparently its Mt. Bonnell, or at least the Scenic loop leading up ...

Interesting Happy Hour

Thursday is the new Friday.  Actually, its kind-of the old Friday for me.  You see, every Saturday morning we get up early and run 12-22 miles.  So that means that if we want to go out and have a good time, it happens on Thursday night.  Especially when there's more ...

Easy Recovery

I headed out this morning thinking that I'd be doing an easy seven miles.  By about mile two though I was feeling tight -- not painful, but noticable -- in my core from yesterday's workout, so I cut it short and did the five mile loop with ten 100M strides ...

Core Workout

I wasn't sure that I was going to go to today's afternoon core workout, but I figured that if I skipped #2, that'd do me in for sure.  Still, after the surprise Circuit this morning, I wasn't exactly looking forward to another set.  Still, I only did 3 1/2 repetitions ...

400M Circuit

I showed up at about two minutes to 600 this morning, ready to do some serious fartleks (3 on, 1 recovery), and found out that there'd been some kind of mixup and we were heading to do circuit instead. Ah, well. I chatted to Jay on the way ...

Aborted Swim Attempt

Theoretically, on Tuesdays I run to the gym, do some leg work, then run back. Today, it being the 4th, I slept in instead and went to the pool. Unfortunately I seem to have misplaced my goggles, so I was only able to do about 150M before my ...

Core 101

I just got back from doing my first ever Core class at Jack and Adam's.  Wow.  The class itself is basic, almost (but not quite) childish in its simplicity.  The theory?  Work your core muscles to exhaustion.  Then do it again.  And again.  And again.  Repeat until you can't lift, ...


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