Second Life in Running

Was I crazy?!!! At the age of 42, I decided to run a race again. I'd been running off and on --mostly on--since I was 11 years-old.

Some teacher friends were training for TCM in Minneapolis, and after a winter where I weighed in at 194, it occured to me that I needed motivation to up the amounts of mileage and reduce the old waist-line. Also, I had started using a sports Walkman and found I could go a lot longer when serenaded with the music station of my choice.

I lived 2.2 miles from Lake Harriet in Minneapolis, and discovered that not only could I make it to the lake, I could make it around the lake... and back if I went slowly. After a few weeks of jogging around the lake(7.1 miles) my weight had already dropped several pounds. More important, I felt motivated to sign-up for the Twin Cities Marathon 2002.

My then-ex and I used to hang out at a bookstore where you could browse while drinking coffee. Since literature and philosophy are too demanding at a coffee bar, I picked up Galloway's Marathon: You Can Do It! book. I didn't care how fast I ran, so it made perfect sence to me to follow his training plan. I'm Greek, and his tales of the early Greek news runners inspired me.

So, after giving up competition at 17, I was back in a training mode, and it felt good, very good.

to be continued...