PR's

I went ahead and listed my all time best times for the standard distances. For the Seven Hills bunch, my best Huntsville Half was in 1991 with a 1:37:45 finish. I’m starting a new list that I’ll call the New Era PR’s, my times from this point forward will begin with whatever I run the April 12th 5K up in Conroe in. It will be way over 30 minutes, but it’ll be a start.

I do agree with James when he says that your times don't tell the story of who you are as a runner and a person. Our running times are probably the least important thing about who we are. I’ve always known that and it was reinforced during the Texas Independence Relay when my teammates didn’t care at all that I was not prepared to run well.

I went ahead and listed my times for a few reasons. One is to motivate me to get my run in first before I start writing a training message or working on a schedule. It will also let everyone know (who knows me and is currently faster than me) that this could be and probably is in you too. When I say to someone at training that they have more talent than I ever had…I do mean it. And lastly while we don’t have control over the weather and what life throws at us, but on that cool fall day with low humidity and with everything lining up just right you cut a minute off your best time, that’s a sweet moment and should be shared.

The memories I have from all of the past PR days don’t actually revolve around running the fast time. When I ran my fastest half marathon in Austin all I was thinking about was that my buddy Ralph was 5 seconds behind me and he was doing the full marathon! OMG. He did break 3 hours. The big news that day was our other friend qualifying for Boston by 10 seconds. It was his day in the sun achieving a goal that he had worked a long time for.

All the memories from events past and present are mostly about the people I shared the experience with. If I never run faster again…it really won’t matter as the friendships along the way have been and are the most important thing to me. That being said, I do want to be in much better overall shape taking better care of myself. While I won’t approach my all time PR’s (with the exception of maybe the 50M, 100K and 100M) I will keep a scorecard of my new era times and see what happens.

It would be nice to run a solid effort for the San Antonio Marathon and celebrate a good day with my friends who are also planning on running. Maybe one or two will make a Boston time, some may run their best times ever, for others it’ll be a first marathon or first half marathon, and maybe a few will have had better days. Regardless of what happens and what our performances are on that day it’ll be a memory in the context of friendships and if some magic happens with the clock…..it’s just icing on the cake.

Favorite PR days
20K - was unexpected
10K - my friend Ralph paced me
Rocky Raccoon 50K - I was training hard for the Sunmart 50M and was in great shape with perfect conditions
5K - first time my friend Bruce beat me, he broke 18 minutes and would go on to run a 2:50 first marathon a year later.
(Ralph, Bruce & I ran Boston together in 1990)