A History

I first realized one could be a "runner" in the late 1980s when I was in the 5th grade. For P.E. we had to run laps around the park next to our school and I suddenly found myself finishing before nearly all my classmates (I remember there was one 6th grader who I could never beat). As this continued, I began enjoying the feeling of beating people in races. At the suggestion of a teacher I joined our school's small track team and was able to compete against other kids at an annual meet at Chaffey College. The next year (when that pesky 6th grader had moved on to junior high) I moved into the top spot. I had fallen in love with running, and I was only 11. I ran again at the track meet at Chaffey College that year and was poised to continue to improve as a runner.

However, upon entering junior high I began to develop other interests. I started to favor basketball over running and I joined the school's team my 7th and 8th grade years. I no longer ran consistently, and thus I fell out of shape. By the time I entered high school in 1992 running was a long forgotten pastime. But, fortunately, I would be led back to the pure sport once again.

I unsuccessfully tried out for the high school basketball team my freshman year. Though this event had me down and out at the time, in hindsight I consider it quite fortuitous. I knew I wanted to be a part of some sport during high school, and so I began weighing my options. It wasn't until my sophomore year that I finally realized that I could return to my running roots. Since I wasn't aware of the sport of cross-country at the time, my first thought was track. It was early 1994 when I approached the track coach about joining the team. I hadn't run competitively in about four years. I knew I wanted to run the mile, since that's what I had been running back in 5th and 6th grade (my mile PR, set when I was in 6th grade, was 6:09.) The coach welcomed me onto the team, and so my new running career began.

It was disheartening at first. At our first meet I ran a 6:40 mile. I couldn't believe that at the age of 15 I was running slower than when I was 11! But I kept working. My endurance slowly increased and by the third meet of the season I had set a new mile PR (6:07). I also began running the half-mile. Running distance events naturally put me in the company of other distance runners and the distance coach. And I very soon felt at home. It wasn't long before I learned of cross-country. I found out that for true distance runners, cross-country was the glory sport, and track was something to use just to stay in shape in the off-season. I knew that I would need to become a cross-country runner.

I finished off my track season with some personal (albeit minuscule) accomplishments. I finally broke the 6 minute mile mark at Alta Loma High School on 31 March 1994 (running a 5:58), and on the very last meet of the season at our home track at Rancho Cucamonga High School I set a PR in both my events, running a 5:54 mile and a 2:40 half-mile.

So I went into cross-country season completely obsessed with running. Summer practices were a blast. We had quite a lot of fun as a team out on those distance runs (sometimes too much fun). Back then, Rancho Cucamonga still had a lot of undeveloped land, and many of our runs would take us through wild fields along the San Gabriel foothills. I developed a love of running through such beautiful, wide-open terrain. I had been bitten bad by the running bug!

My first cross-country season started with an invitational at Cal Poly Pomona. I remember being quite nervous seeing the thousands of runners from schools across Southern California. I didn't know what to expect. Would I get lost? Would I even make it? Would I come in dead last? I soon learned that these were pretty common first-time runner concerns. When the gun sounded and we were off, though, all my worries faded. And even though I ran the slowest three-mile time I would ever run (23:05), I had had a great time and I felt a sense of accomplishment I had never felt before. I couldn't wait till our next meet to try to lower my time.

Little by little I got better. I grew in confidence. My PR that season ended up being 20:03, set at Red Hill Park in Rancho Cucamonga on 6 October 1994. I got to experience the infamous Mt. SAC course, with its three killer hills. I developed tight bonds with my fellow runners, and my only regret was that I hadn't joined cross-country sooner.

After getting one track season and one cross-country season under my belt, I went into my second track season with a sense of sureness. I knew what I wanted to accomplish, and I felt sure I could. Right away I realized that by spending the fall running cross-country, I had already guaranteed new PRs in track. Some fellow runners and I decided to start our track season early by running at an All Comers meet at Mt. SAC on 28 January 1995. I ran the 800 and surprised myself by getting a 2:23. I had beat my previous PR by 17 seconds! At our first meet of the season I ran the mile in 5:40, beating that PR by 14 seconds. I kept my 800 times that season close to my Mt. SAC time, but I never actually beat it. While my mile time continued to drop little by little. On 28 March 1995, on our home track, I ran a 5:28 mile, which would go on to become my yet-to-be-broken PR. What I didn't know then was that my second season of track would become my best one. I had hit a plateau of sorts, and to take my running to the next level would have required a level of dedication and hard work that I never allowed myself to give.

I went into my second cross-country season with much anticipation, but also with new priorities in my life. I had begun surfing, I had a car, and I was a senior. Running began to take a backseat to other things. Overall, my times for my second cross-country season were better, but not by that much. I finally broke the 20 minute barrier on 12 October 1995 at Chaffey High School in Ontario by running a 19:52. Little did I know then that that would become my official cross-country PR. I had envisioned one day getting down into the 18 minute range, but to no avail. I simply wasn't applying myself anymore. Practices became purely about having fun, and I became distracted by other things in my life. My very last cross-country race ever, at Mt. SAC, I ran a disappointing 21:36.

My last season of track pretty much continued what I had begun during cross-country. I didn't set any PRs. My fastest mile was a 5:41 and my fastest half-mile a 2:26. I "went through the motions" that season, thinking only of graduating and my life after high school, which I wasn't even sure would involve running. Back then I had thought I was "burnt out." I was a little tired of the routine of practice every day, running long distances, the ordeal of meets. I wanted a break. It wasn't that I suddenly disliked running, but I began to take it for granted.

So when I graduated from high school, I gave myself the break from running I desired. For a whole year after, I ran maybe a handful of times. Soon another year went by, and another, and before I knew it I had fallen out of shape, going from a skinny 130 lbs in high school to 165 lbs. By 1999, three years out of high school, I finally saw the error of my ways. I began going for leisurely runs, enjoying the non-competitive nature of these jaunts. My weight slowly began coming down. In 2000 I moved to Fullerton to be closer to school, and the combination of running more and eating less (now that I had to buy my own food) caused my weight to drop down to the 140s. I saw running now for the first time as a beneficial activity for my body. In high school it was more about the friends I ran with and the competition I ran against, but now, at the age of 21, I saw running as something I needed to do to increase the quality of my life. It was a profound realization.

The entire time I lived in Fullerton, from 2000-2002, I ran frequently. My weight stayed around 145 lbs. But when I graduated college I moved back home to Rancho Cucamonga and my running became less frequent. Weight started to creep on again. Like before, it was "busy-ness" that caused my running to take a backseat. I devoted myself to my band (so much so that I moved to Lincoln, Nebraska for a short time to keep the band together). I became busy with work. By 2004 my weight had begun to approach 160 lbs. I knew I had to re-introduce running once again.

Aside from my high school years, 2004 would become my most devoted running year ever. I began with easy runs in April and by June I was running six days a week, putting in about 3-4 miles a day. My weight dropped to about 150 lbs. In August I introduced mountain biking into my training regimen. I began trail running as well. And by September I had amazingly returned to my high school weight of 135 lbs! I was in the best shape of my life, and it was at this very moment in my life that I met my future wife.

As soon as Deborah and I began seeing each other, my running was on the decline. I had something new to be obsessed with. All the time I had spent working out was now spent hanging out with Deborah. By the time 2005 rolled around I had added about 10 lbs, and this was just the beginning. Over the next few years I ran seldom. I'd usually put in a few weeks of running during the summer and that was about it. Deborah and I got married in July of 2008, and I had a somewhat strong running comeback in the months before the wedding. I managed to drop from 175 lbs to 165 lbs, but it was short-lived. My intense workouts pre-wedding went completely MIA post-wedding. Next came a period of stress and worry as Deborah and I worked on stabilizing ourselves financially. And as Falstaff says in Shakespeare's Henry IV, "A plague of sighing and grief! It blows a man up like a bladder." Running was the last thing I was thinking about. I got a job teaching in Redondo Beach that required about 120 miles of commuting each day. Following this I got a job teaching in Barstow, which required us to relocate to the desert. Life became so busy I, again, forgot all about running. Before I knew it I had reached the 180 lb mark -- a milestone I'd sooner take back.

Which brings me to today. I wrote in my last post that I need to make a "now-or-never" decision. I can continue to become less of a runner each day, or I can become more of a runner than I've ever been. The choice was kind of a no-brainer.