First blog post ever...

Why am I doing this? Especially why am I doing this right now? It's almost midnight and I'm really tired. I have to be up pretty early tomorrow, but not TOO early. But I've been thinking about doing this blog for a little while now, and decided tonight was the night to start.

I was finally pushed over the edge of starting by my run tonight. See, I'm training for a marathon. My first marathon. I've never been a runner. Not only that, but I've been a sort of anti-runner. Always accused people running of doing it only because they must have lost their bikes, and suggesting gently that they are crazy for doing something that is so painful and so high impact on bones and joints.

But this spring I woke up one day and decided I was by golly going to run a marathon. The White Rock Marathon here in Dallas. There's more to that story than I'm going to write tonight. I'll catch up with all that stuff one day soon. For now, though, I'm just going to say what I absolutely have to, and then stop this foolishness and go to bed.

I've been running a lot (yes, I know "a lot" is relative) since April 18, 2007, the day of the first run of my life. I think I've made good progress. I've gone from being able to "run" about 100 yards that day back in April, to doing an 18 mile "double loop" last Saturday. And I've gotten faster, of course. It's because of speed that I just had to start tonight. On my regular runs of 8 or 9 miles I've been completely happy with an average pace of 9:25 or 9:22. I went out tonight after work, having gotten off early, at just after 7:00 p.m., and I felt pretty good. It was a wonderful night. Low 70s and not much wind. So I went down to the lake on a whim. (I wouldn't normally drive down to the lake on a night like tonight.)

Well, I started my run, and finished the first mile in 9:06. I felt good. (Jack Johnson is singing "Imagine" right now. My son Paul gave me an iTunes gift of "Instant Karma: The Amnesty International Campaign to Save Darfur" the other day. It's a bunch of John Lennon songs covered by various people. Some of it kinda grates on me, but some of it is brilliant. You should listen....) The next mile was 8:36 and I still felt good, but assumed that I'd have to cut it back. I decided, though, to keep up the pace as long as I could.

Weirdly, I continued to feel good. I could maintain! Why? How was it that I could hold this pace all of a sudden? I didn't and don't know. I suppose just the cool weather? But when I turned around at 4.5 miles, having decided to do 9 miles, I was still going strong. I felt kinda funny a few times, but didn't have to slow down. I finished the run averaging 8:37 for the 9 miles. The last mile was 7:53.

To some of you (not that I think anyone is actually reading this.....) that may not sound fast, but for me that's blazing speed!!! I vividly remember the first time, just a few months ago, when I was excited to have finished a mile in under 11 minutes.

So, I'm amazed that I was so fast. And feeling good about that, I decided the time was finally right to start the blog I've thought about. It will give me someone to talk to about running.

There's a lot more I want to say. But it's too late to say it tonight. So for now, I'm signing off.

Patrick