5K on the way

So on May 18, I will put on a bib for the first time in years and run a 5K. RUN. The goal of course would be a PR, but that may not be realistic as I have just one week (of weak) ;)  speed training under my belt. That is the goal however, and time will tell what happens.

May 18th is a day I will never forget for other reasons, because, as some in the Northwest may remember, May 18th 1980, is the day Mt. St. Helen's erupted. I can remember being at a baseball practice and seeing the ash plumes stretching into the sky. From Portland, it looked like this

http://www.mount.st.helens.national-park.com/photo.htm

 

 

Back then I was a very skinny kid and yes I did run some (cross country). I never really trained so to speak... I could pretty much just run forever if I wanted. I believe once my dad took me to the Oregon Coast to run the Seaside Oregon half marathon... at least I think it was a half marathon. Maybe it was a 10K... I can't remember, but I know I didn't really train for it and I did OK. It kind of sucked though because part of it was in the sand which made for hard running. 

I was a good but not great runner back then, and one of the only races I remember was meet a that I placed 6th in. It was one of the bigger races too and probably my best performance, but I remember being next to another runner at my school, and at one or the other's suggestion we decided to go across the line together to tie, but in the last 50 yards he sprinted ahead and beat me. Obviously, he didn't like to lose.

A few years later he was much better at cross country than I, and I had stopped running. The next school year he didn't show up and I heard through the grapevine that he committed suicide over the summer. The story I heard was there was some type of injury or medical condition, and that Dr's told him he couldn't run anymore, and that pushed him to suicide. True story or not, I don't know, but that was the rumor at school.

Darn that kind of turned into a bummer, but where I was trying to go with that is that running isn't just running to everyone. Running certainly isn't worth your life, but running can make your life more worthwhile. It isn't the running itself per se, but the journey of it all. Health, determination, dedication, motivation are all required just to get you to the starting line. What happens from there, is just the icing on the cake.