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When college and high school athletics ended, I was
concerned about my athletic well being. I relied on competitive
sports to stay in shape and keep me active. Without competitive
sports, it would be very easy for me to start putting on the
pounds and let myself go. In fact, as I get older it seems easier
to do that even if I am active. But, I want to try to stay in the
best shape I can and still maintain a regular life, so I turned
to running.
The first thing I like about running is that it seems to be the
best overall body workout available. Some have argued that
swimming is better, but I still think I've read that running is
better. Also, whenever I've been in good shape in the past, those
have been the times that I've run best. The only bad points about
running are that 1) I'm not good at it and 2) It can be boring.
I began running a few years ago starting with a mile and up to 3
or 4 miles on long days. Then, I abruptly increased the dosage to
4 miles on the short days and up to 45 minutes on long days, then
an hour, and finally one hour and thirty minutes. I did that a
few times a week for another year or so and then early in the
year 2001, I saw that the 2nd Annual Nashville Country Music
Marathon was scheduled for April. I signed up for the marathon on
an impulse and started to train. I made sure I told a lot of
people I was running in it so that I would stay committed to
finishing.
I trained for the marathon and finished with a time of 4 hours
and 55 minutes. Admittedly, this time was slower than I wanted,
however, I am still proud of it since it was my first marathon,
I'm not a good runner, I have asthma, and the Nashville marathon
is very difficult compared to other marathons because of many
hills. Many other runners who had completed the Chicago marathon
reported running with times 20 to 40 minutes faster than the
Nashville marathon. In hindsight, I also didn't run enough
distance in my training. My longest run before the race was
around 13 miles and it should have been around 20 miles.
I still run and I plan to run the Nashville marathon again and
then the Chicago marathon. Hopefully, I'll continue to improve my
performance, my times, my health, and my physical appearance.