Caveat: If you don’t like introspection and philosophy then please don’t read this.

If this comes across as arrogant/rude or elitist then I apologize in advance. Some of this touches on sensitive subjects that are polarizing. I won’t allow others to suppress my thoughts or opinions without a serious intellectual effort on their part. So if you feel my thoughts or opinions are wrong or need some sort of reconsideration PLEASE comment!

My brief running history: I started running last year. I had never run before for anything other than for fun (<1 mile).

This is a never ending argument in the running community along the lines of how a FAST or SLOW runner is defined.

Jogging VS Running

“Jogging” is for those people who needed to lose weight but will probably never find it in running. These are what I consider “joggers” now. They are people who dip their toes in the running world, and like a fad diet it fades out of their life. Every time I see them I see a brother or sister runner, with potential to find what I have found. I have hope for them and always smile when I see them. My heart yearns to tell them what they will discover if they keep going. As with other things, it’s the journey not the destination. If you lose weight as a result of running then you should be happy! But if you are only running to lose weight and never see the light at the end of run?

Then there were the other people.

These were the runners. These are people I have genuine respect for. They don’t run exclusively to lose weight; they don’t run because they just feel like doing it occasionally. These people run because they know deep down what I know now. Running resonates my soul like a tuning fork that was smacked against a rock. I have an elliptical that I never use now. Running on the elliptical is like smacking that tuning fork against a rubber mat. It might cause a reaction but it’s in my soul a waste of my body’s effort. I’ll use a treadmill if I had one because I believe that is the middle ground where my tuning fork will resonate but the tone will not be a pure.

My Transition

At the beginning of 2010 I would consider myself a “jogger”
I ran my first 5K on 5/11/2010 in 26:43 and it was a real effort. For a complete list of my race history check here:
http://www.athlinks.com/myresultsadv.aspx?rid=79096361

The next month I ran my first 10K in 1:03:30 with an injury which really frustrated me.
Still a “jogger” I went to a doctor’s appointment about my injury. There in the office a random nurse took my pulse and looked at me with a smidgen of respect and (without knowing what I was there for) said “You’re a runner aren’t you?”
From this day on I considered myself a runner. Not because the nurse labeled me as such but when asked, I simply smiled proudly and said “Yes!”. It was locked in my heart and soul. I was in love!

My next big race was on Sept 18th 2010 a Half Marathon I ran in 1:45:25.
To make a capstone for the year I ran my first marathon on Oct 3, 2010 in 4:01:09.

I followed the marathon with my second 10K I ran in 47:09 and my last race of the year was a 5K I ran in 21:43 placing first in my age group!

I logged well over 464 total miles in 2010 between races and training from September to December. Time to start 2011!