Me and running

Did I ever tell you how I started running? Want to know? Ok, then.

I had always wanted to run a marathon, but had never done anything about it or really planned to do anything about it. I took my friend, Paul to the Chickamauga Marathon one year and drank coffee and read the newspaper while he ran, but that was as close as I came to running myself.

Fast forward to late 2000.  I was playing football with a group of church kids (I was quarterback, natch). Well, in the middle of a glorious QB sneak, as I was passing the defensive line, I told a kid that he couldn't block me. Turned out, he could. A minute or so later, I invited all the kids around to see what a broken collar bone looked like.

Fast forward a few more months. The bone pieces hadn't knitted, so I  had surgery to nail them together, but in the process, I'd gained about 30 pounds!!!

This is where we talk about me running. I was disgusted with how much weight I'd gained and wanted to do something about it. At the same time, at work, I had an IRS agent camped out in my office, auditing one of my clients (I'm a CPA). It was frustrating. Anyhow, I started going to the YMCA and was walking, then running, on the treadmill. I was really enjoying it and started thinking about my goal of running a marathon. I lost the 30 pounds and just as importantly, found that my frustration over this drawn out audit would go away when I ran!

So, I met up with my friend Jerry who agreed to help me train. Jerry had run either two or three marathons at that point. We would run through the week and do either long runs or races on weekends. I ran several 5k's, a few 10k's and then graduated up to a half marathon. I finally did my first marathon (Chickamauga) in November of 2004.

It is important to note that I'm not very good, but over the past 8 years I have finished 9 marathons (Chickamauga x 3, Country Music, Disney, Flying Monkey x 3 and New York) and about 30 half marathons. I've loved running them. I've loved running in general.

But, here we are in late 2012. I lost my running mojo about a year ago and have put on about 10 of the 30 pounds I had lost and kept off for almost a decade. I have run a couple of halfathons this year but done poorly and, as a matter of fact, can barely squeak through a very short run here in December.

BUT, I've got some plans for next year. I'll tell you about them later. In the meantime, I'm ready to get that mojo back. If only I could remember where I put it.