To Start Things Off...

Well, here we go. My first post on my first dedicated running blog.

To briefly recap my running history, I've been at this for over 37 months. I've taken part in well over 50 road races, 6 of them full Marathons. It's given me a body I never knew existed, a confidence unmatched by anything else in my life, and a hunger that I hope never goes away. The last three years of my life have been beset by many, many changes but one of the few constants in it has been the simple act of putting one foot in front of the other. Faster and faster.

I'm a far cry from the 300-pound dude with persistent knee pain and an unwillingness to put myself in motion for very long. In that alone, I know I've been an inspiration to many. However the greatest person inspired is the one who started this in the first place - me. The fact that I've accomplished a very difficult task in my life allowed me to break through the barriers I used surround myself with.

I can't say that I did it alone, though. There are quite a few people who have put various levels of encouragement in me at the right times to keep me focused and still continue to do so, but one stands out the most. My running coach and mentor (henceforth known in this blog as "RK") was the one that I lay the credit/blame for what I started back in early October 2006. Being a distance and Marathon runner himself, RK made a near-impossible task much easier to deal with by giving me a new focus every time I hit a certain goal. He knew which buttons to push to get me to the next step, even when he wasn't aware of pushing them. RK made it a mental test just as much as a physical one. If I thought I would skip out on a run, he would go anyway and challenge me to keep up with what he did. "Just completed your loop? Good, go sign up for your first race - a 5-miler." "Good time on your race! Now do a half-marathon." "Want to do a full Marathon? How about one on Cape Cod...in the dead of winter." It does help that I rarely back down from a challenge. RK learned that fact pretty quickly, I think. To this day he still makes sure I'm keeping myself up in the running scheme of things - and to this day I still am.

Speaking of keeping myself up on things, I do hope to provide you all with regular running updates on this blog. Everything from my (almost) daily running route results to road races to interesting stuff about running in general - I should have plenty to post about. Thank you for taking the time to read this first post!