Gooooooaaaaaals

Experience has taught me over the past 10 years that my so-called "love of running" is trumped by a love for something so much greater ... that to sit on the couch after work and relax. I believe that there are certain laws that are irrevocably decreed in heaven long before our arrival here on earth; and I've worked with high school kids long enough to know that people don't do what their not compelled to do. If this were the case, chapters would be read ahead of time and The Jeopardy Review Game would become a thing of the past. So what might compel me to get off the couch? After so many years of fierce deliberation the jury has come back with a verdict. It reads something like this ... competition.

Not necessarily competion with other people so much as competition with myself. As soon as I started to run with a stopwatch in my hand I noticed a difference. At this stage of the game it would be very difficult for me to deal with running slower today than I did yesterday. When my lungs/legs/head/body/everything burn(s) on lap 5 of 12, I think how it will feel to finish faster today than I did yesterday - it's the only thing that keeps me running. I know that as the weeks and months progress my times will taper, but for now that seems to be working.

Don't get me wrong. I love to compete against others, I'm just not sure how that's going to pan out. I set myself up with a 10-week training program which will take me to the end of April. My brief research of local running venues in the Houston area led me to a little - or maybe it's big - race they run twice a month in The Woodlands. At $1.00 a pop the price is right and the atmosphere seems very conducive to beginners or "comebackers" as it were in the case of Chrissy and I. I'll run as hard as I can when that day comes and two weeks later, maybe I'll do it again. If I outrun some folks, great. If I outrun my previous time, greater.

Once I get my legs - and lungs - back, I would love to attempt something more in the genre of sprinting. It is just as painful only the pain lasts seconds vs. minutes (probably the couch potato part of me manifesting itself on the track of all unlikely places.) It seems, however, that 5k races abound while all-comer's track meets are few and far between. I've got my eye on an annual meet I found in Austin at the end of May, but I don't want to get ahead of myself. Right now the 5k is plenty to chew on.