Once a Runner

Well, I'm guessing the few readers of this blog are probably sick of me just talking about the stats on my runs, so I'm going to try to diverge from that a little bit.  I will still blog a particularly good workout, but I'll try to make it a bit more interesting.

I read the book "Once a Runner" by John L. Parker earlier this week, and boy did that ever make me want to run.  I'm guessing not too many people reading this blog would ever go and read a book about running, but if you ever intend to, I would skip the rest of the paragraph.  In the book, a collegiate runner Quenton Cassidy with a PR of 4:00.3 in the mile gets kicked out of school (for no good reason).  His friend Bruce convinces him to use his cabin and do nothing but train and try to reach his full potential.  He pounds out some 140+ mile weeks, comes back and runs a 3:52.5 mile.  The descriptions are totally what I would expect the training to be like, and reading it was really inspiring.

After I read the last page, I wanted to go out and run 20 miles.  Alas, my legs were still recuperating from my race, so I had to settle for my normal 4.5-5 mile route.  I doubt I'll ever even get below a 5:00 mile, but I promise you that I will get under 6:00.  I don't even know what I could do a mile in right now.  I did the first mile of my recent race in 7:07, so I'm guessing I'm somewhere around 6:30-6:40 for my fastest mile.  That's kind of sad considering I did the mile run in 6:51 back in elementary school without any training.

One thing that was a bit depressing is that the book begins and ends with a 26 year old Cassidy reflecting that his running career is over, that he's too old to compete in the mile.  Well... I'm 26, so it's a good thing I'm more interested in middle distance running than the mile.  Luckily, I'm nowhere near the highest level of fitness I can achieve, so I'll be able to get faster and faster for years to come if I stick with it.

Today I'm meeting my friend Jeff for a run.  I haven't seen him in years, and he's quite a bit faster than I am yet, but he's coming off an injury so I should be able to keep up with him for now :P.

Leave me comments with suggestions of what I should write about, otherwise I'm going to ramble disjointly like I did today.