Steve the Owl's Blog

I am 30 years old. One of my great unrealized dreams was running a five-minute mile. There were two times in 1998 when I came very close, running a 5:15 in January of my senior year of high school without even really trying (I had already run hills earlier, and I was helping a friend who was trying to lose weight get into shape. He had his stopwatch, and being so cold, I was wearing sweats, and I did not feel winded at all.) and 5:09 in August of that year, in the first mile of a 1 1/2 mile run for the fitness test at the maritime college I attended for two years.

A Dream Denied or a Dream Delayed?

I ran track from 1996-2000 (outdoor, 1996-99; indoor 1998-2000) and cross-country from 1996-98. (I was at sea for the 1999 cross-country season, and I left the maritime college in the spring of 2000.) There were times when I wanted to make my comeback into racing again, but something always seemed to get in the way, whether an injury or a busy schedule. (The closest to a comeback in that time other than running for fitness was running 10 miles in January 2005 as part of a charity event for the tsunami victims, where we pledged $1/mile, and I decided to do 10 miles. It took a little over 93 minutes.)

In my four years of competitive racing, the best coach that I ever had was my first coach, but he was only there for one season. With long periods of absence, and the fact that collegiate distance runners are largely self-coached. (I say “largely” because in my two years of D-III track, the coach’s main job seemed to be deciding which was an easy or hard day and deciding who would run what event. These things are not unimportant, but they do leave a lot of latitude.) Later, I realized that I made the mistake of trying to stay at top form for too long when I thought that I was simply working on my leg speed, which was always the weakest element of my running.

A New Start

It has been over ten years since my last competitive race. (I don’t count Army fitness tests as “competitive races” because they are really more pass/fail than anything.) When I went to the bank recently, I saw an announcement for a 5K race (3.1 miles) and I decided that this would be the beginning of my comeback. I am not running this with expectations of winning the race, but for the personal victory of finishing. The race is 29 days before my 31st birthday, so I know that I have about 2 1/2 months to get ready.

There were many times in life when I thought a five-minute while was at hand, only to slip through my fingers. I have spent a long time wondering what might have been with better coaching. What might have been if my high school coach would have allowed us to run off the track (distance runners in track tend to prefer to do long days off of the track to program themselves to only run their hardest on the track, and those who don’t like to lift weights get strength from running hills)? I cannot turn back time, but I know that I can meet my goal.

If I can meet my goal at this, a goal that I thought would be forever unfulfilled, what will this say about those other goals that have yet to be reached? A five-minute mile, a Ph.D., or meeting my business goals. I know that if I can do one, I can do them all.

Tags: comeback, delayed dream, goal setting, running

This entry was posted on Saturday, July 10th, 2010 at 3:54 pm and is filed under Business. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.