How Long Have You Been a Runner?

32 years. Started after recovering from two broken legs in a skiing accident.

Orlando Pizzolato was quite an incentive to keep going.

Alison Roe was amazing.

But "Rocky" remains one of the best adolescent running and fitness visions to be remembered.

Bikila, Budd, Juantorena, Wottle are the current standards...

28 years. Alberto & Boston Billy got me fired up about it, too.

I went at it fairly hard from 17 y.o. on, lots of hard miles and lots of races. Ran in college & then post-college got into road racing, marathons, and ultras since I was 22. The last 5 years I've raced much less, but still get out the door for 40 - 60 mpw.

All those miles later & I still feel pretty good (no major injuries and no joint problems) its just the scenery is going by a bit more slowly now. PR's were set mostly about 10 - 12 years ago. Still enjoying the journey.

I guess about sixteen years; I'm twenty-eight now. My mom actually forced me to go out for track in the sixth grade.

10 year this month.

woot

About 8 years for me, when I was 14. I HATED running before then. One day I got upset from my soccer coaches putting me down and then cutting me from the team, so I started running. These past few years have been rough with injuries, but I'm in it for the long haul.

I started the fall of 1975 at the urging of two HS buddies. Our older brothers had run XC and T&F during their time in HS and my friends insisted that we carry on in their foot steps.

After watching my brother run up to 100mpw with doubles, I swore I wanted no part of that craziness. During my 33 years of running, I've hit 100mpw once and have outlasted all but two of my HS teammates.

...but I was a swimmer on day one!

I am in my 33rd running year.

I competed steadily (track and xc) from 1975 thru 1979, then ran regularly but only sporadic competition (a couple of road races) from 1980-this summer. This year I trained for and competed in the local all-comers track series (8 meets) plus a couple out of state meets and had a blast. I'd like to see if I can improve enough to not embarrass myself at Master's National Championship meets. If not, so what - I'll still have fun at the local all-comers.

almost exactly 12 years for me. i'm 21 now.

13 years not counting the 15 years I was out with an injury.

8 years for me, I am 21 years old.

Joined the track team in the 7th grade and haven't looked back.

Ladies and gentlemen, we have a winner, and I think that it's Orville Atkins. I "started" a year earlier, but that was really just jogging around a Rugby field, avoiding the cow-pies and sheep manure. I was assigned to that because I was so inept at Rugby that the coach couldn't figure out what else to do with me....Nobody had figured out that I was so short-sighted that I couldn't see the ball, nor much else on the field. However, I liked the running, but it was 1955 before I ran a race, so....Orville Atkins is The Man!

Besides, he could understand and communicate with Igloi, a skill I never acquired.

Jimmy P wrote:

I have been running for 2 years haha. I run a 4:28 mile and a 2:01 800. I am 16.

glad i saw you. i was starting to think that all the people that beat me around on the boards are like 40-50 years old.

i ran my first race (1 mile) in 4th grade when i was 9 and ran 7:22. i didn't start training until 7th grade because that was the first year we were allowed to run xc. now, i'm in 11th grade (16 years old) and my mile PR is 4:43. If i can just take off half as much time as i've taken off the last 7 years in the next 14 years, i'll be looking good, but i'm definitely not a miler.

April 24th, 2009 will be 30 years, coming up on 70,000 miles and will probably just run happily right into my grave.

Hope to make it to 100,000 miles before then though

We're close! I hit 41 years back in May. This year I've run mostly trail races (after indoor track season). 7 races of 25 to 32 km, plus my longest ever run at 47 km.