14 years of distance running

April 3rd, 1997

Why is this date important, well you could venture that it was the first dual meet of the track and field season my freshman year of high school. I had to go online to see the calendar date for this date. This was exactly 14 years ago that you could say my distance running journey even started. 
 

Before the track season even began I had no idea what I would be in for or what I would do in track. Our family moved back into Ohio after 11 years in West Virginia and when I was in Junior High I competed in the sprints (100, 200, 400) and the long jump. These were the events my dad had competed when he was in high school back then he was very athletic and skinny. LOL just kidding if your reading this dad. Anyway,I wasn't terribly excelling in these events so the distance coach told me to go run with the mid distance/distance kids and see what I think. It wasn't that bad. I was hoping to be able to compete with the mid
distance hoping to run just the 400-800 events, however as it turned out the coaches had other plans, strangely . This is where I would run with the guy who would get me started running. 

That person was J.J. O'Rielley. He was two years older than me, a junior. Very athletic for his 5'7 size and placed 10th at the state cross country meet that fall, he would become state champion his senior year. Along with classmates Mike and Tim who
were good mid distance runners and few guys and girls I was put in with made up the mid-distance/distance kids. One of the first workouts I ever did was on a Saturday two weeks before our first meet in which we went to Dice Hill in Dover and did hill repeats. I survived but ended up puking the orange juice I drink beforehand. What a crazy way to start distance running. 

Yet, I think what kept me motivated was the fact of the encouragement of my coaches, teammates, parents, and the fact if I scored enough points I would earn my first letter and be able to wear a lettermen's jacket. I guess the fact having a lettermen's jacket in High School seems like a big deal no matter what sport. 

Well, back to April 3rd. I was put into the 1600 and 3200 meter runs. Got 4th in the 1600 with a time of 5:28 and got 3rd in the 3200 meters with a time of 12:28 which I scored 1 point. It was a very humbling start for me into the sport. My freshman season ended with my fastes ttimes being 2:20 in the 800 meters, 5:14 in the 1600 meters, and 11:48 in the 3200 meters. However, I did letter thanks to scoring in a couple duals, tris, quads, and being on distance relays. This first year jump started me into running cross country. I've kept going since then and my times have gone down even further.

I wrote this post just to look back as now I'm preparing to run the Boston Marathon in less than a month from now. This has been a long journey in which I'm very happy to be competing in. The few blogs leading up I'll try to share a little bit of the good and the bad of how I got here. 

It's great to look back once in awhile but only to realize how much we have been able to move forward and keep going. And, that's my two cents!!!