The Untamed Runner celebrates a fourth birthday this year. Four years isn’t very long-one Olympic cycle-but a fair number of notable things have occurred.
I managed to finally get back under 19:00 for a 5K (18:42 in an official race in 2019 and 18:56 on a track in 2020) and I ran a marathon where I had a stark reminder of “the wall” at mile twenty. For the first time in many years, I toed the lines of races as a member of a team, first with Runners Roost and now with the Dry Creek Striders. I expanded the number of states I’ve run in and found some that served strictly to expand my list and others that I hope to go back to, such as Highway 373 near Amargosa Valley, NV.
Given that in-person racing was nearly non-existent for 2020 and some of 2021, I did a bunch of time trials. This allowed me to connect with friends and we were able to do different distances that are not common among standard road races. In some cases, we had two-for-one. We did a 3200M on a track but we marked 16M past the finish so we could stretch it out and also record our full two-mile time. We also did a downhill mile race which was preceded by an uphill mile race (or slog). I think for the latter that was our first and last attempt. While I’m not sure I can quantify how these less common distances impacted my racing and training, they posed different kinds of challenges and were fun, which is what running should be.
This blog has been a fun way to relay information and news about running. I appreciate your reading it and look forward to writing more content. The topics will likely be varied and the next one will be on the possible impact of flashy gear. Stay tuned…
Running anecdotes, running food reviews, some race coverage, and more