Climbing a Mountain

I have recently surpassed running over three hundred miles among races and training this calendar year. Occasionally I will come up for air and ask myself why am I running as much as I am.


I  have come a long way from the ten minutes and eleven seconds it required to run my first mile last year when I began training. I have progressed from running a mile in 611 seconds to only 355 seconds in fourteen months. In order to get to the next level I need to become 45 seconds faster, running a mile in about 5 minutes and 15 seconds

There are parallels among climbing a mountain and training.  If you choose to climb a smaller mountain it will not take you as long to get to the peak.  I have already climbed the mountain I have set out to climb.  Completing a mile in less than six minutes is something I have never done in my life, not even as a skinny teen.  This mountain required 14 months of training.  I have run over 135 hours and 850 miles during this time.

As I stand now and ask myself if I want to continue to climb the mountain or climb back down, I can't help but desiring to keep trekking.  I am still setting personal records at each race.  I have not plateaued yet.  I am training smarter, doing less training and getting better results. To get to the top of the mountain you have to progress at a reasonable measured pace, i.e., enjoy the climb as you go.

I have always believed I would need to train for about three years before I can enter races and actually race against others. (The prospect of discovering I was a promising runner at age 46 and after years of a sedentary lifestyle was not realistic. I knew I would have to work hard to get in shape.)  This year I choose a target pace for a race and then adhere to it, regardless of what is transpiring around myself.  I would like to climb this mountain for one more year and then re-assess where I am on the mountain.

I would like to run the Lebanon VA 5K his Saturday morning.  The best runners from Lebanon county will be there.  I won't finish in the top ten, but I should have a shot at besting my personal 5K record of 22 minutes and 48 seconds.  My training program is customized for a 5K, not the one mile I recently ran.
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