Running

I have been running since 1991, and running marathons (26.2 miles) since 2000. After having run 8 marathons, and realizing I wasn't going to be getting (much) faster, I decided to try something longer instead. Anything longer than a marathon is called an ultra-marathon. They generally are 50K, 50 miles, 100K, or 100 miles. I went for 50 miles. I ran the Bull Run Run, on April 8, 2006. My long-time friend Bob and I ran it together. Unfortunately it rained all night before and all day of the race. We were dropped from the race after 28.1 miles and 7:25 because we missed the cut-off for that point by 10 minutes. Oh, well. We may try again if we find an ultra-marathon road race! I was prepared to run 50 miles, but I was not prepared to slog 50 miles through the mud!

Here is my record of how I've done in marathons:

Where	When	13.1 miles	20 miles	Finish time
Richmond	Nov 2000	1:58:49	3:02:15	3:58:21
Cleveland	May 2001			3:59:35
Richmond	Nov 2001	1:48:07	2:48:33	3:48:27	My PR
Richmond	Nov 2002	1:52:32	2:53:26	3:54:33
New York	Nov 2003	2:18:49		4:19:58	Hot but fun.
Richmond	Nov 2004	1:53:19	2:59:12	3:57:51
Baltimore	Oct 2005			4:42:40
Richmond	Nov 2005	1:54:34	2:57:23	3:53:32
VA Beach	Mar 2006			5:17:11	+3:00:00 for the 13.6 miles that we ran to get to the starting line!
Richmond	Nov 2006	2:00:19	3:13:25	4:25:53
Marine Crp Wash DC	Oct 2007			4:35:36
Marine Crp Wash DC	Oct 2008	2:12:10		4:27:48

The most meaningful run I had was doing a half-marathon with my son Nick in 2002 when he was 16. We finished the Colonial Half-marathon in Williamsburg in 2:05. My daughter Meagan was there to cheer us on, which she has also done for several marathons. Here we are at about 4 miles:

I take my inspiration as a runner from the legendary Czech runner Emil Zatopek, who won gold medals in the 1952 Olympics in the 5K, 10K, and Marathon races. That is unequalled in long-distance running. It was his first marathon! Here is a picture from the 5K race:

and here is a brief movie clip of the race.

The most exciting race I've witnessed (on TV) was the end of the 2005 NYC Marathon, which was a race to the finish-very unusual in marathons:

Here are a few pictures from the Bull Run Ultra-Marathon: