1988

I have this habit of keeping training diaries. The first one is from 1981, but it's pretty boring. I didn't run much that year. I was stopped by a sore knee after my second marathon (3:28:28). How silly was that? I mean, I only started running in 1979!

My diary from 1988 was falling apart, so I made it into a web page. I managed to run some PBs that year, in spite of training like a novice. Reading it now is a little embarrassing. Who cares. Susan and Katy are happy to put embarrassing photos on their blogs. I'll publish embarrassing words.

I was living in Sydney, and did a lot of running in the sublimely delightful Lane Cove National Park. Years earlier I'd met a group called the River Runners, who ran twice a week in 'The Park'. The trouble is, they ran fast! 4:30 kilometres (7:15 miles) were needed to stay in the group. In hindsight, for me, this was much too fast for general aerobic conditioning.

Anyway, it was good fun at the time. I was fortunate to run with some great people. I miss 'The Park'.

The next big thing

Four weeks from today I'll be dragging myself out of bed at some ungodly hour of the morning to race 21.1 kilometres through the streets of Surfers Paradise.

I guess this race is my next big thing. My indecisiveness is due to never having been a 'big thing' runner. Although I've run marathons, and more recently, the Six Foot Track, I don't train for such events with the purpose of running as fast as possible on the day. I just want to survive these adventures in one piece, so as to resume normal everyday running.

I'm not a marathoner. I used to be a 1500m to half marathon runner. These days I prefer 3k to 5k races. Am I a wimp for not having 'big thing' goals? I blame my even temperament. Do I lack commitment? Part of my reserve comes from many years of involvement with teenage runners. Some of them started out with 'big thing' goals such as running in the Olympics or the Melbourne Commonwealth Games. These were very talented athletes who had the ability to achieve these goals.

On a smaller scale, there are runners like Stu, who had two 'big thing' goals this year, one to run a sub-40 10k at Sandown. He missed by just over a minute, but does that make his year a failure? When I was in my thirties my 'big thing' was just to try and improve. There was always another race.

I had a goal at the beginning of this year of running 95:29 at the Gold Coast Half Marathon. McMillan reckons I might run 1:40:32 which is probably closer to the mark. Whatever happens, I intend to enjoy the day, because afterwards, there will be another race, and another.