When I was young I enjoyed going for long runs. While I was in the military I often ran five miles over the lunch break. After the military I moved into a new neighborhood and went for my first run on city sidewalks. Running on the concrete hurt my knees. I could hardly walk up the stairs to my house. From that point every time I tried to run, as soon as I reached any kind of distance, something would hurt. My back, my knees, my hips, something would force me to stop running. I didn’t run for years.
One day I decided that I wanted to try running again. I ran a half mile on an inside padded track. It was ok. I slowly built up to a mile and did that at the end of my weightlifting workouts for many months.
One day, my son, who was planning on joining the Marine Corps and was running a lot in preparation said to me “Dad, don’t Marines run three miles?”.
I was challenged to try again to build up to a three mile run. I very slowly increased the distance that I ran until after many months was again running three miles. I felt very good about the fact that this old Marine could once again pass the Marine Corps physical fitness test. (The situps and pullups are not, and never were a problem for me.)
This past summer I wanted to try something different. I thought that I would try doing the triathlon routine. I swam, biked and ran: first for twenty minutes each, and then for thirty minutes each. It then occurred to me that if I was going to enter a triathlon, I would have to run on something other than an inside, padded track.
The first time that I ran outside I was very concerned. I ran on the grass or on the gravel shoulder as much as possible.
It worked. I was able to run outside again without hurting. I have been routinely doing this triathlon training now for a few months. It feels good.
On Labor Day, the gym was closed. I couldn’t swim, and I had the urge to try for a longer run.
I ran for an hour. It went really well. I checked out the distance with the car and I had made 6.6 miles! That was the longest run I had made in over twenty years.
The problem is… now I want more. I am going to try going for long runs every other week. Yesterday, I ran for an hour again. This morning there are no ill effects. I am going to try adding four minutes the next time that I run. I will continue to do a long run every other week ( in addition to other shorter runs in between) adding four minutes every other time, until I reach the ten mile mark.
We’ll see how it goes.