Catching up a bit - My first year of running

I said at the beginning of this blog that I would let you know bit by bit where I am and how I got here. At the start of '08 I had completed 5 marathons and 2 ultramarathons, both 50k's. I ran my very first race in May of '05. I was 52 years old, and had done most of my training on a treadmill. I started running because I knew I needed to do something to be more active. My first race was called the Kolache 5k. It was not a well organized race, but I ran it because I knew there wouldn't be many people there, and probably almost no one would know me. I also thought that because it was small, I would have a chance to get an award. We started and I was running too fast. I had to stop and walk for a short bit, but as soon as I saw someone coming up behind me, I started running again. I finished, and they told me my time was 18: something. I still have the newspaper article to prove it. And at the time I didn't know any better. But I did know that the winners were talking about the course being short. I now know that it was very short, because the first certified 5k I ran my time was closer to 24 minutes. But I did medal at this little race, and thankful that it encouraged me to continue running. After that, I ran a few more obscure races, usually top 3 in my age group. Then I ran a big race in Midwest City OK, and ran into a friend that I didn't know runs. He encouraged me to join the Oklahoma City running club and I did. That introduced me to training with others and outdoors. I will end for now, and bring you up to date in future blogs. Thanks for taking the time to stop by.