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.

Deja Vu? Or the Case of the Recurring Repeats

Guess what, boys and girls? Its Howdy D 400 meter repeat time. Again. I swear, it feels like we just did these. Huh. Anyway, this time I parked at RunTex and did the normal warmup at around a 9:30 pace. I started out running ...

Long Run Thought

I did manage to talk to Gilbert for a couple of minutes at RunTex after the workout today; I asked him how fast I should be doing my long runs. He grinned, and told me to run easy, just how I feel, but to do the last 30 minutes ...

800M Intervals

Looking back through my logs, it doesn't seem that I do 800M intervals very often. Its a common distance to use for the run portion of our circuit workout, but that's not at all the same. We started out doing our 1.6 mile warmup run - I ran ...

Easy Wilke

Well, not easy per se. But fun. Today was only 75 degrees (at six in the morning) but it was humid enough that the 1 mile warmup and drills felt like a workout all by themselves. Still, we got to the base of Wilke and Gilbert took ...

400M Repeats

I think that's the most 400M repeats I've ever done. Cool. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Today I knew I had an early morning meeting, so I drove down to Austin High and did about 2-3 laps of warmup on the track, meeting up with David ...

Circuit Training

The good news was that I made it out to my training class today. The less good news was that it just wasn't happening at 5:00 in the morning, so I slept in and went in the afternoon. That's a Texas afternoon, you hear, which means somewhere in ...

Tempo Run

To some people a tempo run starts out slow, builds up speed, and then slows down at the end. Not I. At least, not today. But I'm getting ahead of myself. This morning was pretty nasty to run in; come to think of it, it was ...

900M Repeats

This morning we met at the usual place and then ran over to Zilker park for some 900M repeats. These are more challenging than 800M repeats on the track because the course we run is a little hiller - that, and they're 100M longer. We were supposed to ...

Short Circuit

Getting up at 5AM after a time change was supposed to be difficult, but in fact it was really easy. After all, I had a very positive reason to do so - it was my first drill back with Gilbert. We ran the 1.6 miles to Austin High for a ...

Nice 1000m Intervals

The intervals were fun - there were some annoying parts of the morning though. We start out with a nice warmup for once - averaged around a 9:00 pace by starting out with a 9:30 and ending up at 8:20 by the last half mile or so. The humidity felt ...


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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November 9th 2008
Tags: Running

One Comment

2008 Marine Corps Marathon (long)

I'll say its long - 26.2 miles when you haven't run more than about 16 all year is way too long! Let me recap my training schedule for the last two months, just in case you haven't been paying attention (or I haven't been posting it): September 6: 60 mile ...
November 9th 2008
Tags: Running, Races

No Comments

2008 Gazelle 10 Miler

It was great getting to see everyone today. I wasn't sure that I would race - hell, I knew I wouldn't race, I wasn't sure I'd even bother to show up. Packet pickup had come and gone without me, and I was out 'til late last night getting ...
October 26th 2008
Tags: Running

3 Comments

2008 Marine Corps Marathon (quick)

Turns out that yes, I was ready. Kinda. This was my first marathon since I started triathlon and the cardio benefits really showed - my breathing was always under control and my HR stayed low. My legs were really feeling the fact that I only ran ~25 miles in the ...
October 25th 2008
Tags: Musings, Running

One Comment

Am I Ready?

Tomorrow morning, at 5AM (EST of all things), my alarm will go off. It will go off again at 5:15, 5:30, and 5:45, just to make sure. And its not just one alarm, its a combination of the hotel clock radio, the wake-up service, and my iPhone. I think that, as ...
October 22nd 2008
Tags: Workouts, Swimming

2 Comments

Swim Clinic

My swim times have been, well, let's be nice and just say "abysmal." That's fine for now - at the beginning of the year I could barely make it to the other end of the pool, and just a couple of weeks ago I did a half Ironman. ...
October 5th 2008
Tags: Races

4 Comments

2008 Longhorn Ironman 70.3

Wow.  That was the hardest thing I think I've done - certainly including my first marathon.  The big difference was that I went into this knowing that - if I made the cutoffs - I was going to finish.  No question. And I did - some 45 minutes slower than I'd ...

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Famous Marathon Times

RunnerTimePace
Al Gore4:58:2511:23
Oprah4:29:3010:17
P. Diddy4:14:549:43
Sarah Palin3:59:369:09
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
Haile Gebrselassie2:03:594:44

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