I remeber stopping maybe 3 times to "Tie my shoe." It was a mile, and it probably took me 12 minutes. But I kept going back, and after a while I could run a mile without stopping. So then, my dad found a route for us to run on. A 1 mile loop around the park up the street. The first maybe half mile slightly downhill, followed by a quick uphill, another long little road that let you recover from the hill just in time to cut through the grass, and come out on the 2nd to final street with a push for the finish line, which was my father's 1992 Blue Ford Crown Victoria.
Come September, I would run the Fallon 1 Mile Fun Run. In my first race ever, I got a time of 9:04, and finished 51st.
because I do not plan to run it ever again.
After a while, my dad seeked other routes. We found both found ours at the Lake Ave Park. He ran on the sidewalk where he liked it, and I just ran inside on the trail because it seemed easy and organized. The course was 2.5 miles, if you run around it twice. Once I increased my mileage, things really started to happen. In that same Fallon Race, I cut off 1:20 from my previous time. I placed 25th with 7:44.
After Fallon, there would be just about no running...but I still ran the 2004 (even though it was on December 31st, 2003) First Night Main Street Mile. I chopped off 24 seconds from Fallon.
First day of running after the winter break was March 24th, 1 mile that I did in 8:13. 2 more miles that month, 1 mile in April, and in May I started to kind-of run regularly. Four 2.5 runs in the 20 minute area, two 1 mile runs, a 21:35 on May 31st, and the worst run of all came on my birthday, a run so bad I didn't even want to finish it. A time of 12:04 for 1.25 miles.
Just 8 days and 5 miles later, I ran the Worcester Firefighters Memorial 6k Road Race. The crowd carried me through, and I finished 335th with a time of 31:59. My father finished 143rd, with a time of 27:37.
I ran 2 days after the 6k, which was a big mistake (no recovery time.) I ran 3.7 miles in that race, 1.2 more than I ever did in training, and 0.6 more than my previous longest. If you're curious, it was 24:34 for 2.5. I would not feel good about running again until after August 19th.
The hard work paid off though, as I did 19:48 for 2.5 miles my next run. I had done better than anything else before. It really should've been 19 minutes, but both my shoes became untied and were literally going to fall off if I didn't do anything. Bad timing.
After the untied shoe, I went to my normal 2.5 course (the untied shoe one was at York Beach, in Maine.) And boy, did I ever go. 17:44 out of nowhere. I felt like I was flying through the course. It really felt good. 2 days later I got a 19:47. No 17:44, but it was better than more 21+ I had been getting before.
The whistle blew, and I was off. I was doing just what I had wanted to do, run. When I approached the turn around, I saw the top runners and realized that I was one of them. On our way back, I battled with an older teenager, who was probably named Shaun Cianci, but I'm not quite sure. Once I passed him, I passed no one else, and no one passed me. I came in at 6:09, placing 7th.
Awards were given out to the Top Male and Female Finishers, along with medals to the top three in each age category. I finished 4th in my age category. Since my goal was to win a medal, I should be disappointed. But I'm not. I gave it all that I could, and couldn't have asked for a better performance.