Welcome to 45!

Tomorrow I turn 45 years young. A semi-milestone year. I think I am officially middle aged. But lets see how old age has treated me.

I began this running thing 5 years ago (2002) when I was approaching my 40th birthday. My goal was to run my first 5K. I had never run anything more than a mile or two. A 5K seemed quite daunting. And I even read rumors of people who could run non-stop for an entire hour! Unbelieveable? Seemed so back then. I trained and ran that 5K about a week after my 40th birthday - 3.1 miles non-stop in about 37 minutes.

Fast forward to today. Today I completed two runs - a 4 mile run this morning and a 5.5 miler this evening. Since I was on a treadmill, these were run non-stop. My second run was over an hour long.

When I completed that first 5K, I was asked if a marathon was next. I thought, I don't know, that is really far. Maybe I should try a HALF marathon first (which I then did in Jan 2004 in 3hrs and 11 min). 2 more half marathons, 2 10K's and numerous 5K's later, I ran my first marathon in January this year in 5 hrs 47 min. And if that wasn't enough, I am training for two marathons....Marine Corps at the end of October and Disney in mid January.

So as a runner, I am way better at 45 than I was at 40. And of course, I was better at 40 than I was at 30 or even 20. You know what...at 45 I am better than at 40 in many other ways as well :-)

Watch out world....50 is coming! :-)