Good, Better, Best, Never Let it Rest, Until the Good is the Better and the Better is the Best!

As most of you know, I ran Cross Country and Track in high school, but when I decided to start running competitively again this summer it had been five years since my last race. I had no idea what to expect, all I knew is that my competitive spirit was still very much intact and that I’d keep pushing myself.

"Every morning in Africa a gazelle wakes up. It knows it must move faster than the lion or it will not survive. Every morning a lion wakes up and it knows it must move faster than the slowest gazelle or it will starve. It doesn't matter if you are the lion or the gazelle, when the sun comes up, you better be moving." - Maurice Greene

I entered my first race, a 5k to push myself to start running regularly again. I didn’t anticipate being competitive in the overall top finishers, and had no idea what to expect for a goal time. I ended up being second in my age category and winning a hat (random I know). We mapped the course to figure out our slow times and realized it was an extra 1k! After that, I was hooked. I remembered everything I loved about running in high school and knew that not much would tear me away now.

"I always loved running...it was something you could do by yourself, and under your own power. You could go in any direction, fast or slow as you wanted, fighting the wind if you felt like it, seeking out new sights just on the strength of your feet and the courage of your lungs." - Jesse Owens

Over the course of the summer I ran several more races, placing each time and getting more and more hooked. I ordered some awesome road race shoes and realized that even without a team like the one I loved in high school I could have a blast running.

The last race I ran was on October 7 and I ended up getting a PR. Granted I’ve only been running 5ks this season, but improvement is improvement.

"The woods are lovely dark and deep, but I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep, and miles to go before I sleep." - Robert Frost

My goal now? Well, I signed up for two trail races in November, the much loved Turkey Trots. One is in my current city, the other in my home town on the trails I ran in high school. I will be breaking out the spikes that haven’t seen the light of day in five years and pushing out what I hope will be the best times of my 5k career. I am going to start concentrating on training how I should be. No more 3mi runs each day and calling it quits. I will incorporate intervals, long slow distance days, hills, and even some 800 repeats (just need to find a track around here to use for that).

Knees: All through high school I had horrible issues with tendinitis in my knees. It’s still there, for sure. I have been wearing Cho-Pat straps under the kneecaps however and that seems to be solving most of my problems. If they really start to bother me I’ll take a day or two off (something I would never have dreamed of doing in high school). Hopefully they will continue to hold up, I’m not sure I could give up running again.