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.

Bike Time Trial

RunFar was having their last time trial of the season today, and since I'd never ridden a timed loop before I figured it was a good opportunity for me to check it out. I met up with Marcus and Bill down by the Veloway, signed in at the truck, ...

Biking Recovery

I didn't really feel like getting up early to go running again today, considering that I was still feeling somewhat sore from Saturday's 22 miler, so I went out for a one hour recovery ride instead, figuring that I'd get a lot of the same benefits from it. I ...

South MoPac Loop

This was my second time out on my bike, and I took it pretty easy. I spent an hour or so running all the wiring for my new Cateye bike computer (cadence, etc) so that I was happy with it. That meant starting pretty late in the morning, ...

Broken Bikes

Nothing too bad happened, but it was a series of breakdowns that characterized my most recent trip out to the hill. I was the first with a minor issue: going down the first decent hill in the middle of Fat Chuck's Demise I realized that I had my back ...

Rocky Hill Ranch

Since this week's been pretty shot as far as staying on schedule anyway, and because its a whole lot of fun, tomorrow morning I'm off to Rocky Hill for 3-4 hours of mountain bike goodness. Slippery singletrack here I come! Er, if I don't run at all on Saturday, I'll ...

Velowaying

So, I made it out to the Veloway for some slow laps this morning. Each lap is basically 5K, and I did a grand total of .. four. Let's see: I did one slowly, and my MCL was tight, so I stopped and stretched it out. Did ...

Pre-riding leg two

We met up at 7pm and did about 14 miles today, a little more than half of the total race distance for Sunday and including both of our long stages. It took us two hours, but that was riding slowly and doing some backtracking with lots of pauses to ...

Bike Ride

Well, I didn't end up getting my long run in this weekend thanks to time constraints, but I was able to do some biking at least. I started out the day by taking the family to McKinney Falls state park for some hiking - we did about four miles ...

Veloway!

You know, I think that this was the first time I've been out to the Veloway this year. That's a very nice bikes/blades only track near my house. Rolling hills, 23 feet wide, one way, and about 3.15 miles long. I did seven laps (22.07 miles) in ...

Rocky Hill Ranch

Riding at Rocky Hill has to be one of the most entertaining ways to kill off an afternoon that I know of. This ride was no exception - although it might not have ever happened. There have been rumors going around for a while that the ranch is going to ...


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