Introduction

I have decided to start this blog mainly as a way for my children to follow my running activities.  I doubt many others will read this, but if you do, welcome, and if you know running and have suggestions I would be happy to hear them.

But before I get too far into running, let me tell you a little about me.  I have five of the most wonderful children anyone could ever ask for, four daughters and one son.  Except for one, my son, they are all grown and out of the house.  My son graduates this June.  I also have five really great grandchildren, soon to be six.  I remember the first time I was told I was going to be a grandfather; it came as a bit of a shock.  But now I cannot see life any different and I love being a grandfather, or "papa" as my grandchildren call me.  I get to be my normal goofy self and instead of being made fun of I am told I am a good grandfather who loves to play with his grandchildren (which I do).  (I was goofy when my children were little and no different than I am with my grandchildren now than I was with my own children, but they were too young to remember that).

I also have an uber-fantastic partner.  Her name is Heidi and she is the love of my life.  We were just married last year (2010) and life really just does get better and better.  It is not easy being married to a competitive runner.  We are very driven people, which of course is why we tend to do better than others in things we set out to do.  It is not necessarily that we are better in abilities, but we are more focused and determined.  One could easily feel like second best or even get jealous (it has happened to me before), but my love has been nothing but supportive.  I am extremely blessed to have found someone like her and my love continues to grow for her.  Though I always believed love could be this good, I basically had given up hope of me ever finding that.  Heidi is amazing, what more can I say?

Back to running.  I started running 6 years ago as a way to lose weight.  I was one of those people who had lost weight numerous times, only to put back on all the weight I had lost, plus a few more pounds.  I was tired of this and tired of being out of shape.  Though I had no grandchildren at the time, I knew they would be coming and I really wanted to be around for a long time to enjoy them.  This was no easy decision for me.  I was the one who made fun of people who did exercise.  Exercise was worse than a four letter word, it was an eight letter word!  But start to exercise I did on February 7, 2005.  Though I did accomplish my goal to lose weight, I basically hated running for 3 1/2 years.  I only continued because of the benefits I saw.  Then the strangest thing happened.  After my first Ragnar Relay in 2008 I began to really enjoy running.  That Relay was one of my most enjoyable competitions ever, and not just because we did extremely well.  My running now had a purpose other than just weight loss.  It was now something I could become much better at.

As I said, I did lose weight and have kept it off ever since I lost it.  I have lost a total of 80 pounds, which was nearly 1/3 of my body weight, and went from a 29.6% body fat to 6.7% body fat.  Of course, the corresponding health benefits have followed, which are another nice benefit.

I have a very ambitious year this year.  I have two half-marathons, one in April and the other in May (SLC, UT and Ogden, UT, respectively) that I want to run sub 1:30.  Then I will do my first marathon in October, the Layton, UT marathon which I hope to do in sub 3:15 (my real goal is 3:00 hours but don't tell anyone that as that is quite intimidating, even for me).  My love of my life will also run the two half-marathons.

Though I have never run a marathon, it is not like I have never run a race.  I have run one two miler, twelve 5ks, five 10ks, two 10 milers, four half-marathons, two 30ks, and one ultra marathon of 50 miles.  I usually hold my own and can compete with most any runner but the absolute fastest (though I did surprise myself when I won a local 10k last October 2010). 
I don't necessarily attempt to share "Pearls of Wisdom" here, but will pass along what I know and articles that I find interesting.  I read a lot about running and fitness but don't always remember where I read it from so will post a link, where possible.  Most likely I will also post humorous things as well.

Each day I will at least post my workout.  My real training starts January 24, 12 weeks before my first half-marathon.  Right now I am just preparing for my training.

I forgot to mention that all my workouts, except for my Saturday long run, are on the treadmill.  Matter of necessity though I know it is not the best way to train.  However, during the winter when we have extremely cold days (that would be below 25 degrees and/or nasty inversions with lots of pollution) I also will run on a treadmill on Saturdays. I was very excited to finally break the 20 minute barrier in the 5k two weeks ago when I ran it in 19:59 (but I still broke 20 mins!).  Then last week I was able to run the 5k in 19:51.  Again, this was on the treadmill so a road race would not be the same, but that is the next goal! (to break 20 in a road race 5k).