How did you start running? (noncollegiate)

Middle school coach (this was 6th grade, I'm graduating high school this year) saw me running in the rain and asked if I wanted to join XC. Never was very fast, then I had a breakout season last year and I haven't looked back.

First race was when I was 14 - 1500m in local U15 champs. I thought I'd do OK as I played loads of other sports, but came dead last in 6:06 (was "outsprinted" on the finish by a fat friend of mine).

Ten years' later, I'd finished a year's travelling (i.e. drinking) and was 190 lbs (I'm 6'1') and I bet a running friend of mine that with six weeks' training I could run a HM under 1:30. In the end I ran 1.28 and decided to stick at it on-and-off until I was 35, then started taking it more seriously and got down to a 2:31 full/1.11 half. I'm 38 now and keen to soon get under 2:30/1:10 before age catches up with me...

When I was 11 my dad told me I would get fat if I am not active. Tried ping pong, tennis, and running a mile on the tmill.

Became obsessed with arm strength in HS and started running on my own then.

XC one year in HS but hated track &field so I quit. Then I discovered endurance running after 2 years in college and was married to half and full marathons since.

I avoided sports during HS, college, and grad school. I wasn't anti in any way -- sports just didn't interest me.

By 1973 I had finished a couple of years of field research in the Bougainville rainforest, where I walked everywhere, usually carrying a load. I didn't give it much thought. Everybody walked, I walked, no big deal. In fact, though, I became very fit.

On my way back to the US I spent a couple of months near the University of Papua New Guinea. Some guys I knew said, "We're doing this thing called jogging, why not come down to the track and do it with us?"

I said sure, and on that grass track I began my journey as a runner. I loved it immediately.

Nearly 45 years later I still love it.

It was 1996. Michael John and the Atlanta Olympics were everywhere you looked. I couldn't help but pay attention. I quickly found out I preferred distance running to sprinting, and it was a good era for that. One of the kids on my middle school team had a satellite TV and we'd gather round at his house to watch what few televised European meets would could find. It was a cool to watch El G, Komen, Geb, Bob Kennedy, and all the other super performers of the era. Sad to know now every single one of them was a drug abuser, but it was a good time to be a fan...when we were all oblivious to what they were all doing.

I was also a baseball fan. A Cubs fanatic. Sammy Sosa was another childhood hero. I remember the home run record chase with McGwire like it was yesterday. I went to a Tuesday afternoon game, Cubs vs Cardinals, in September when the home run chase was in full swing. The game was sold out like a Saturday night post season game, and just as loud and raucous. Sad to know that was all fake too.

My childhood heroes were all cheaters. How about yours?