Day: February 3, 2018

1988 – 2000 — The Lost Running Years

by Harold L. Shaw, posted in Forty Years of Running, Reflection, Running

This post was written for and first appeared on One Foot In Reality.

Even though some of you may have already read previous versions of this post. Since I have started writing on Aging Runnah exclusively, I have decided to clean-up and re-publish my forty plus years of running series here on Aging Runnah. There were a few rough spots, things left out and I thought it would be nice to share this old fart’s story of running over the years – yeah the story of how I became the runner I am today.

This post will be about the years

1988 – 2000 — The Lost Running Years

Snow Shoeing with Dad – I don’t have any running pics from this time.

This post will be about 1988 to September 2000. These are the toughest years for me to write about. A lot happened in my life professionally and personally that well…looking back were years that I made a lot of mistakes. Twelve years which I consider the “lost” years of my running life. I didn’t race at all and while I ran quite a bit during this time, I didn’t run consistently and it was more spits, spurts and far too often more than a little bit of indifference.

However, even though I didn’t run consistently or race much, I still would run around 200 days a year.

For many reasons and how painful some of the memories are for me me during this period, I have decided to make this post my most generic and will just skim through most everything and then move on.

Continue reading “1988 – 2000 — The Lost Running Years” →

Back to The Treadmill – RunLog 2-3-18

by Harold L. Shaw, posted in RunLog

You know when you wake up and look at the thermometer and it says -11*F (then subtract whatever wind chill is going on), that it is going to be a long morning. Luckily the pipes didn’t freeze overnight (we didn’t plug the house in) due to some issues going on with the garage electrical system, so I didn’t have crawl under the house with the heat gun and play unthaw the pipes in subzero temps. Always a good thing.

When Bennie and I walked out the door for his first walk, the wind was minimal. Even so, he didn’t dwaddle at all, eleven below is still purty chilly and he did his business, then we quickly headed directly back to the house. I didn’t even get in 600 steps hehehee, short walk – for sure.

It didn’t get a whole lot warmer for Bennie’s long walk and it was cut short, just because the little bugger was shivering so bad…he ain’t too bright sometimes and wanted to keep going despite the sub zero wind chills. Looking at how much he was shivering, we turned around t the top of the hill and he didn’t really complain. By the time we got home, he didn’t waste anytime getting into the house.

This meant that I got to go to the gym a bit earlier.

No, I wasn’t going to run outside this morning in subzero wind chills (the breeze came up a little), I did that yesterday and didn’t feel like a repeat performance. The idea of running on the treadmill in shorts and a t-shirt after those two walks outside with Bennie became a much more appealing option, versus the bundling up that I would have had to do.

Planet Fitness was busy, but I got lucky and got a treadmill as soon as I walked over to that area after doing my pre-run exercises. Shortly after I got on the treadmill there were people waiting for one, which I know that I hate.

However, the run itself was uneventful, a comfortable 7.0 mph for 2.0 miles, 7.1 for a bit and then progression for the last 1.50, with a strong last quarter.

  • Run Information: • Course: PF-Treadmill • Distance: 5.0 • Time: 41:30 • Pace: 8:18 • Shoes: Newton Gravity 3 • Temperature: Indoor • Weather: Indoor
  • Cross training: 6:00 minutes @4.0 mph at 15% incline and 7.5 miles on the elliptical

Overall, a really nice run on the treadmill and a heck of lot better than running outside this morning. I gotta admit that I prefer shorts and t-shirts to being all bundled up most of the time.Thank you for reading and being patient with a cantankerous old fart’s blathering and babbling on about the changes that I am going through as I get older and the fun that I am having as a part of this process.Originally written by Harold Shaw and published as part of http://haroldlshaw.com

1984-1988 New London and Meeting Some Greats

by Harold L. Shaw, posted in Forty Years of Running, Reflection, Running

This post was written for and first appeared on One Foot In Reality.

Even though some of you may have already read previous versions of this post. Since I have started writing on Aging Runnah exclusively, I have decided to clean-up and re-publish my forty plus years of running series here on Aging Runnah. There were a few rough spots, things left out and I thought it would be nice to share this old fart’s story of running over the years – yeah the story of how I became the runner I am today.

To make things simpler I have broken these posts into somewhat chronological order, based on where I have lived and run. Some places will have their own posts, others will be combined sometimes I will even break out a particularly important event in my running into its own post.

This post will be about the years

Running 1984-1988 – The Glory Years

Well at least the time in my running life, where I ran well and had delusions of grandeur.

CGAS Cape Cod 10K – 1985 //

1985 & 1986 were my personal glory days when it comes to my running career. Starting in April ’85 until September ’86, I think I ran a different road race at least twice a month and traveled to a couple of out of state races, specifically to run them. Something that I had never done before.

During this time my race pace was usually between 6:00 and 6:20 pace, which really wasn’t that fast for the time period, but faster than I had ever run before or since. Hell every once in a while I would break that magical 6:00 minute pace barrier for a race and I thought that I could do even better, with a little different training.

Those thoughts of grandeur that runners get from time-to-time, which were also wonderfully dashed during this time period when I got to run with some really good runners for a while.

We moved to the New London/Groton, CT area in October 1984 and I found a wonderful running community at the Coast Guard’s Research & Development Center that was located over on Avery Point (yeah, the college). There were about 10-15 people who would run almost every day at lunch time, so it was very seldom that I would run by myself, unless I wanted to. It seemed like there was always someone to run with.

At first I had a hard time keeping up with most of them, but I got better with the daily runs. When they saw that I was going to train with them in all kinds of weather, they began to accept me into their running circle (this was before Google, Facebook and all the running apps).

Continue reading “1984-1988 New London and Meeting Some Greats” →