Well, here I am - at that awkward point where I want to get my blog up and running but not quite sure how to get things rolling. I guess what I'm trying to do is bring my running into the 21st century and blogging seems to be the latest rage, so here I am and here it is.
I'm not entirely certain what form place this will ultimately take and thus the name - Junk Miles. You see, just as there is a healthy debate in the running community about whether junk miles add any value to a training program, I'm not entirely certain this blog is going to have any value to anyone - myself included. At worst, I'm hoping that it'll be a nice tool for me to collect my thoughts on running into one central place rather than having articles torn out of magazines, a stack of dog-eared books and other training notes scribbled on wrinkled pieces of paper haphazardly stacked and then left in the dark recesses of my bedroom closet.
A bit about me: My name is Trevor and I'm 37 years old. I've been married for almost a dozen years to my lovely wife and have two amazing daughters aged 6 and 5. I currently live in north-central Connecticut, so I get my share of hills during my daily training runs.
Running History - Part 1: I'm already on my second running life. First, however, a little about the prior one. I started running indoor track in the winter of 7th grade. I'm not entirely certain why. I had zero experience running prior to that time. Well, I shouldn't say zero experience - in both 5th and 6th grade I was subjected to a 600m time trial as a part of the Presidential Physical Fitness program. I wasn't particularly good at it either - always finishing squarely in the middle of the pack. Nevertheless, I showed up on the first day of track practice in my Pony high tops, cotton t-shirt and a hideous pair of purple shorts. I clearly remember my first workout, "Run around the track for 20 minutes." I was insulted at how easy the workout was going to be. Three minutes later I had a whole new respect for it. It was ugly.
Rather than bore you with all of the grisly details, let me summarize the rest of my high school running career. I eventually worked my way to varsity status and finished with 14 varsity letters - 4 in cross country, 6 in indoor track (yes, even as an ill-prepared 7th grader) and 4 more in outdoor track. I specialized in the quarter and half-mile distances with PRs of 53.7 seconds in the quarter-mile and 1:56.1 in the half. I occasionally ran the mile and had a rather unspectacular (relative to my half) PR of 4:42. My cross country races were all 5 kilometers in length and I managed a PR of 15:50 during my senior year - my only time under 16 minutes ever.
These times were solid, but not spectacular. Despite that, I did manage to interest several (pretty awful) D-I and D-II track programs in obtaining my running services. Interestingly enough, I turned all of the offers down and decided that I'd run for the University of Rochester. At that time U of R was the #1 D-III track program in the country, so I was was quite excited to be going there. Unfortunately, I never ran a step for Rochester. Let's just say I discovered early in my college career that fraternity life was much more appealing than waking up at 6am for a 10 mile run.
Running History - Part II: Fast forward seventeen years. I'm now 100 pounds heavier (ok, I only weighed 120 pounds in high school, but still) and I'm miserable when I think about how much I've let myself go physically. I had also recently been on the receiving end of a lecture from my doctor in which he told me, not so gently, that my current lifestyle was going to lead me to an early grave. That was my wake-up call. The next day (ironically, perhaps, it was April Fool's Day) I was at the gym for the first time in a long, long time. I decided that I would return to running since it was (a) something I could do on my own, (b) one of the more effective ways to get back into shape and (c) something that I used to be pretty good at. It was a struggle at first. Day one was one mile in ten minutes - a far cry from where I had been. Day two was even more humbling - half a mile (because I couldn't run a whole mile two days in a row) at the same pace. My stubbornness took over at that point and I set a goal for myself. I decided to run a half-marathon - certainly farther than I had ever raced before and a distance that I had only run once before - almost 20 years earlier. Eventually, over the course of six months, I worked my way up to 30 miles per week, lost 50 pounds and managed to finish that half-marathon (and learned a thing or two about pacing along the way) in just under 1:38.
At that point I was hooked and started searching for ways to make myself faster. In addition to running half-marathons I was also now becoming interested in the possibility of running a full marathon. This initially surprised me as I distinctly remember thinking that anyone that raced anything longer than a 10k had a screw loose. Not only was I now interested in running a marathon, however, but I started looking into whether I might be able to qualify for the grand-daddy of all marathons, the Boston Marathon. I decided that the best way to achieve my goal was higher mileage training and eventually turned to Jack Daniel's marathon training plans.
Ok, to make an increasingly long story short - I held a BQ pace for 24 miles in my first marathon and then proceeded to hit the wall hard, very hard. Six months and many miles later I managed to get that BQ on my second attempt. Now, I'm training for Boston and I'll be toeing the line on April 21st.
Well, I think that's it. Congratulations if you made it through all of that. I didn't mean to ramble on for so long. And ,while that's certainly not everything about my running background, you certainly got the most of the highlights. Plus, I have plenty of time to fill you in on the rest. Hopefully my future posts won't be quite as long-winded.
On a side note, I'll apologize now for the pretty boring layout. I'm still learning how all this blog stuff works and I'll start adding new, cool features once I figure it all out.
Good runs to all.
Trevor
I'm not entirely certain what form place this will ultimately take and thus the name - Junk Miles. You see, just as there is a healthy debate in the running community about whether junk miles add any value to a training program, I'm not entirely certain this blog is going to have any value to anyone - myself included. At worst, I'm hoping that it'll be a nice tool for me to collect my thoughts on running into one central place rather than having articles torn out of magazines, a stack of dog-eared books and other training notes scribbled on wrinkled pieces of paper haphazardly stacked and then left in the dark recesses of my bedroom closet.
A bit about me: My name is Trevor and I'm 37 years old. I've been married for almost a dozen years to my lovely wife and have two amazing daughters aged 6 and 5. I currently live in north-central Connecticut, so I get my share of hills during my daily training runs.
Running History - Part 1: I'm already on my second running life. First, however, a little about the prior one. I started running indoor track in the winter of 7th grade. I'm not entirely certain why. I had zero experience running prior to that time. Well, I shouldn't say zero experience - in both 5th and 6th grade I was subjected to a 600m time trial as a part of the Presidential Physical Fitness program. I wasn't particularly good at it either - always finishing squarely in the middle of the pack. Nevertheless, I showed up on the first day of track practice in my Pony high tops, cotton t-shirt and a hideous pair of purple shorts. I clearly remember my first workout, "Run around the track for 20 minutes." I was insulted at how easy the workout was going to be. Three minutes later I had a whole new respect for it. It was ugly.
Rather than bore you with all of the grisly details, let me summarize the rest of my high school running career. I eventually worked my way to varsity status and finished with 14 varsity letters - 4 in cross country, 6 in indoor track (yes, even as an ill-prepared 7th grader) and 4 more in outdoor track. I specialized in the quarter and half-mile distances with PRs of 53.7 seconds in the quarter-mile and 1:56.1 in the half. I occasionally ran the mile and had a rather unspectacular (relative to my half) PR of 4:42. My cross country races were all 5 kilometers in length and I managed a PR of 15:50 during my senior year - my only time under 16 minutes ever.
These times were solid, but not spectacular. Despite that, I did manage to interest several (pretty awful) D-I and D-II track programs in obtaining my running services. Interestingly enough, I turned all of the offers down and decided that I'd run for the University of Rochester. At that time U of R was the #1 D-III track program in the country, so I was was quite excited to be going there. Unfortunately, I never ran a step for Rochester. Let's just say I discovered early in my college career that fraternity life was much more appealing than waking up at 6am for a 10 mile run.
Running History - Part II: Fast forward seventeen years. I'm now 100 pounds heavier (ok, I only weighed 120 pounds in high school, but still) and I'm miserable when I think about how much I've let myself go physically. I had also recently been on the receiving end of a lecture from my doctor in which he told me, not so gently, that my current lifestyle was going to lead me to an early grave. That was my wake-up call. The next day (ironically, perhaps, it was April Fool's Day) I was at the gym for the first time in a long, long time. I decided that I would return to running since it was (a) something I could do on my own, (b) one of the more effective ways to get back into shape and (c) something that I used to be pretty good at. It was a struggle at first. Day one was one mile in ten minutes - a far cry from where I had been. Day two was even more humbling - half a mile (because I couldn't run a whole mile two days in a row) at the same pace. My stubbornness took over at that point and I set a goal for myself. I decided to run a half-marathon - certainly farther than I had ever raced before and a distance that I had only run once before - almost 20 years earlier. Eventually, over the course of six months, I worked my way up to 30 miles per week, lost 50 pounds and managed to finish that half-marathon (and learned a thing or two about pacing along the way) in just under 1:38.
At that point I was hooked and started searching for ways to make myself faster. In addition to running half-marathons I was also now becoming interested in the possibility of running a full marathon. This initially surprised me as I distinctly remember thinking that anyone that raced anything longer than a 10k had a screw loose. Not only was I now interested in running a marathon, however, but I started looking into whether I might be able to qualify for the grand-daddy of all marathons, the Boston Marathon. I decided that the best way to achieve my goal was higher mileage training and eventually turned to Jack Daniel's marathon training plans.
Ok, to make an increasingly long story short - I held a BQ pace for 24 miles in my first marathon and then proceeded to hit the wall hard, very hard. Six months and many miles later I managed to get that BQ on my second attempt. Now, I'm training for Boston and I'll be toeing the line on April 21st.
Well, I think that's it. Congratulations if you made it through all of that. I didn't mean to ramble on for so long. And ,while that's certainly not everything about my running background, you certainly got the most of the highlights. Plus, I have plenty of time to fill you in on the rest. Hopefully my future posts won't be quite as long-winded.
On a side note, I'll apologize now for the pretty boring layout. I'm still learning how all this blog stuff works and I'll start adding new, cool features once I figure it all out.
Good runs to all.
Trevor
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