Post #6

NOW ABOUT THE TRAILS 

Since the name of this Blog is "Lost Trail Runner", you may be wondering where in all that I have written are the trails. The answer is I haven't written about trails yet, but I will.

When I lived in Florida and attended "Florida Technological University", renamed after I graduated to "University of Central Florida", I would go out to the campus and run on the trails where the X-C team trained. I also ran on any dirt roads that I could find. That was the extent of my trail running in Florida.

When I moved to Georgia I found the trail around Stone Mountain and ran there a lot. The trail around Stone Mountain is approximately 5.5 to 6 miles long. Prior to the 1980 Olympics, Benji Durden trained on the Stone Mountain trail in preparation for the marathon. Of course Benji made the Olympic team and then President Carter boycotted the games and Benji didn't get to go.

The Atlanta Track Club had a 10K Trail race at Kennesaw Mountain. It was one of my very favorite races. The best I ever did in that race was 48 minutes, but I loved it. The race was killed by the National Park Service for some reason and the Track Club never replaced it with another trail race. 

There was a 10K Trail Race that was run at the Chattahoochee National Recreation Area by the Chattahoochee River back in the early 1980's and it was a good race, but it didn't last either.

I used to run some on a trail at Tribble Mill Park in Gwinnett County until the County paved it.

I have also run on the Appalachian Trail in the North Georgia mountains, but I mostly run at Stone Mountain if I want to run on a trail.

That is where I get the name "Lost Trail Runner" from, since I run more on the pavement now, even though I prefer the trails. Maybe what I will do is try to travel around the area and find trails to run and write about them in this Blog. That's the ticket! 

Post #5

ON WE GO 

In my last entry I mentioned that I got plantar fasciitis. Talk about something that will slow you down, that is it. 

Well, I limped around for a couple of months, then I finally went to a podiatrist and got a pair of orthotics made, I also got a cortisone shot in my heel. 

My foot got better slowly, but in the meantime I was taking about 600-800 mg of Motrin a day. The doctor also gave me a stretching program which I wasn't very good at sticking with, I should have. Now that I am older I realize that if I would have stretched religiously I wouldn't have had the problem so long. 

I still managed to run about 20-30 races a year during this time, slower but not bad. I ran the Atlanta Marathon in 1983 and 1984, with a PR of 3:53. My goal had been to break 4:00 for the marathon distance. I did better at the 1/2 marathon with a PR of 1:29:12 at the Savannah 1/2 Marathon. 

I got interested in Triathlon in 1985 and started cross-training and did some Sprint Tri's and Duathlons until about 1991. I never did any Olympic distance Tri's though. I am still interested in triathlon, but I haven't entered one in many years. I do ride my bicycle, but I very seldom swim.

I am going to try to be more consistent with entries to this blog, we'll see how it goes. 

Post #4

THE RUNNING GOT MORE SERIOUS 

 

After I purchased the two books I mentioned in the previous entry I started running at the YMCA track at lunch time. I started counting aerobic points using Cooper's system. I wanted to average at least 50 points a week since that indicated that you were in really good aerobic shape. 

I finally made it to about 21 miles a week and thought I was putting in a lot of miles. Then I read in a running magazine that the world class guys were running from 85 to 120 miles a week. That was when I realized there were different levels of seriousness about running. I decided I could still be serious about running and work up to running about 30 miles a week.

When I moved to the Atlanta area in 1978 my running really picked up. I joined a club called the Northeast Striders in Tucker, GA. I also joined the Atlanta Track Club, but the club that I really got involved with was the Bell System Running Club, this was before the Government broke up the Bell System. 

Our club had two big corporate rivals in the Atlanta running scene: Coca Cola and Delta Airlines. There were many corporate track meets and running events from 1978 to 1984. In 1984 when the Government split up the Bell System our club was split into 3 pieces, BellSouth, AT&T and Lucent.

I stayed with AT&T and we still had a pretty strong team, but after 1984 it was never the same to me. I ran less and less in corporate events and started running the Atlanta Track Club Grand Prix Series.

During this time I hurt my right foot, plantar fasciitis. That really slowed me down. I have never completely come back since that injury. More later. 

Post #3

BACK TO PUERTO RICO AND BEYOND 

I read an article in the San Juan Star about a couple of people Surfing. Since I was into water sports at the time it sparked my interest. I never could find any information about surfing beyond that article. 

I was sent to San Diego for a school and guess what, San Diego was the home of surfing in the United States. I really got stoked as they say.

When I got out of the Navy the first thing I did when I got back to Florida was look for a surfboard to buy. I went to Indialantic, FL and found a surf shop owned by, Jack "Murf the Surf" Murphy. I ordered a custom board and started surfing the minute my board was completed. I promptly wiped out and broke my nose.

That didn't stop me though, I surfed for the next fifteen years. I surfed in such places as Rincon, Puerto Rico; Out Islands of the Bahamas; Virginia Beach, VA; Gilgo Beach, NY; all up and down the East Coast of Florida; Okinawa, and Hawaii. 

My cousin and I opened a surf shop in Orlando in the mid 60's. It was called the "Central Florida Surf Shop" and we were located on Orange Avenue by Lake Ivanhoe. We got the majority of our merchandise from Ron Jon Surf Shop in Cocoa Beach as well as from Pat O'hare of O'hare surfboards of Cocoa Beach. 

This was right after Ron Jon moved to Florida from New Jersey. Ron Jon was a small little surf shop at that time. Now the Ron Jon Shop in Cocoa Beach is almost a whole block long. Ron Jon also has a shop in Orlando now. 

My cousin and I sold the surf shop just before I went to Okinawa in 1968. My experiences in Okinawa are a whole different story, that was during the Vietnam War. When I got back from Okinawa I continued to surf until about 1975.

In the meantime Frank Shorter won the Gold Medal for the marathon and that sparked my interest in running again. I bought two books, Kenneth Cooper's "Aerobics" and Bill Bowerman's "Jogging" and I was off and running.

The time frame for this entry was 1962 to 1975 

Post #2

I AM JUMPING AHEAD FOR A MOMENT 

I have run 3 races in the past 3 weeks. The first was a Cross-country race and I had a very bad time. I blamed it on having a flu shot on the Wednesday before the race on Saturday. 

The next weekend I ran another race of the same distance and improved approximately 3 minutes. This validated in my mind that the flu shot had something to do with my poor time the week before. 

The third race I ran was this last Saturday and I improved over last years time for the same race by 5 seconds. That is not much, but every second counts.

All this leads into the fact that I have registered for the Disney Half Marathon in January 2006, so it is time to start training again.

I have run the Disney Marathon four times and the Half Marathon three times. So, I feel that if I train like I should I will have no problem with the race. Speed is another thing though. I would like to run a faster time than I did previously, but I am three years older.

I have chosen to use Roy Benson's 10K training program in PC Coach software. I have used it in the past when I trained seriously and liked it. Roy's 10K program has sufficient mileage base to handle running 13.1 miles in a race with no trouble.

My biggest problem is sticking with the program all the way through. I have a tendency to go off on a tangent and mix some other schedule into the middle of the program I am using. 

I am into the 4th week of my training schedule and am still on track, so I hope that I will continue to maintain focus on the event and stick with it. 

Post #1

WHERE SHOULD I START? 

Should I start at the beginning and work my way to the present? Or, should I just start with the present and go forward? This is a dilemma, I hadn't thought about this previously.

I have many memories of running experiences in the past that are still very vivid and have had a very large impact on my running life.

Well, maybe I should start at the beginning and see just how much I really do remember.

I guess it all started when I was a kid and found out that my Dad had held the 1/2 mile record for the State of Maine when he was in High school back in the 1930's. 

I was very impressed with this and decided that I should run. The only thing was all of the other kids were faster than me. Of course we are talking about sprinting. I didn't know anything about long distance or cross-country running back then. I quit.

When I graduated High school I joined the Navy and went to electronics school in Memphis, TN. While I was in school I joined the Swim team and spent 3 hours a day 5 days a week in the pool after school. That got me in very good shape and I felt good about myself. The Navy swim team competed in local meets around the area and we did very well.

When I completed school I was sent to Roosevelt Roads, Puerto Rico for duty. As it turned out that is where the UDT (Seals) came to complete their training after Hell week in Little Creek, VA. These guys ran 5 miles everyday and I was duly impressed. I decided to start running again, but I would just run slow and try to go farther. I lasted about 6 weeks and then decided that I liked swimming better and went back to the beach and started snorkeling.

The time frame for this entry was from the mid 1950's to 1962