People who knew me in high school, knew me as a runner. I was not fast, but I ran cross country and distance races in track. I don't think I really enjoyed doing that back then, but it was something to do and it kept me in shape for the other things I liked to do. I was really skinny and could not gain weight no matter how much I ate. Those were the days! People who have only known me since I got out of college have a hard time believing that I used to be a skinny runner.
I quit running as soon as I went to college. I still stayed in decent shape by playing basketball and mountain biking, but I did not ever go running. I found that I could now gain some weight! I gained about 50 # my freshman year of college! I still stayed active all through college and stayed in pretty good shape. Then I graduated and started working. The basketball and mountain biking pretty much stopped but I worked out in the woods and stayed in shape just with the physical activity of work.
Now it is 17 years since college and I still work out in the woods, but it is not always a physical as it used to be and I spend about half of my time in the office. So I have decided that it is finally time to do something about my weight and physical conditioning. I had started running on our treadmill that we bought years ago to keep jackets, old papers, books and other needless junk on. I would run on it 2-4 times per week for about a week at a time, but without other motivation to keep me going, I would stop and restart 3 months later. So it was not really very helpful for my conditioning. So next July the company I work for is going to have a team in the Cascade Lakes Relay. This is a 216 +/- mile relay race starting at Diamond Lake and ending in Bend, OR. So I thought that I would sign up for it and use it as motivation to lose weight and get in shape. I have been a little more consistent with running on the treadmill since then. Today however, was a group training day for our team. Everyone that could make it met at the Benton County fairgrounds in Corvallis, and we went for a run/walk in Bald Hill Park. It all went well for me. I took my GPSr with me to see how far I went and only stopped to rest at a couple geocaches. I went to the top of the hill and back and up some side trails too. In all, when I got back to the truck, I had covered just a little over 6 miles. Not too bad for someone who doesn't run.
Now that I am all done with the run and back at home, I remember why I did not like running all that much back when I actually did it. The geocaches kept me distracted during the run and I felt pretty good. But after sitting in the truck driving back home from Corvallis, my knees and ankles are letting me know what they think about running. They are saying, "see this is why you stopped doing this 22 years ago! It hurts!" I just hope that as I keep going and get in better shape, that my knees and ankles do not revolt and actually start liking the lighter weight that should be pounding on them. We will see. I have around 7 months to get in shape to run my portion of the relay. At least I am doing something.
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