Running for joy and fitness only

I ran competitively in HS and College and managed 4:02 mile. Today, 60 years later, I jog (shuffle) for fun and health for about 60-90 minutes and it has served me well.

In 1963 I met and ran a workout with Ron Clarke and he asked me what I thought the most important part of the workout was. I think I said warmup? He said "No, it is putting on your shorts". I've never forgotten that.

I race very rarely. I'm in the latter half of my '60s and don't find the slower times I run to be very inspirational (and winning an age group doesn't really mean that much either). I run because I love it and for the health benefits, but often am engaged in other activities on weekend race days.

Real Old Guy wrote:

I ran competitively in HS and College and managed 4:02 mile. Today, 60 years later, I jog (shuffle) for fun and health for about 60-90 minutes and it has served me well.

In 1963 I met and ran a workout with Ron Clarke and he asked me what I thought the most important part of the workout was. I think I said warmup? He said "No, it is putting on your shorts". I've never forgotten that.

True. It is very difficult to hit a hard workout wearing jeans.

I currently run 4 days a week. 3 days are casual 7km runs. 4th day is a track workout with drills and fast intervals. I do a 5th day of weights only.

I ran track from 16-22 over 400m/800m. I showed a decent level of talent. 55.2/2:05.5 at 17yrs. 52.7/2:02.0 at 19yrs. I also ran 31:20 over 8km in an XC race at 17yrs (made me realize I hate long distances). But since then my times have stagnated and gone backwards. Last season I could only manage 55.8/2:08.8 despite being 22yrs old yet my times in practice show that I should be easily ready to run 49.x/1:52x. I always fall apart on the line. I eventually realized that I was never going to work past my mental block with races. I hate racing. I was never going to get past that, so I quit.

I still exercise frequently but definitely only for the joy of it. I still like moving fast even if the desire to race is gone. I love being incredibly fit and that's my only goal with training. To look in the mirror and know I can still rock a sub-5min mile and squat 120kg anytime is a great feeling. Racing is mentally and physically exhausting. The time committment is huge. The disappointment of not improving greatly hurts after years. Slamming runs and intervals to stay super fit is chill and can be done even if a person only has 90min a day to exercise.

Ran 800m in college . Now , enjoy golf , skiing , gambling on sports. Ran a 5k last summer around 17 minutes . Run a couple times a week. Trying to break 70 in golf is my goal .

likeisaid wrote:

Ran professionally (female) for 15 years, and now simply run for the fitness and mental/physical outlet. Have not raced in 15 years (57 years old ). I can truthfully say that I enjoy it more now than I did when I was competing, because there is no worry about illness, injury, workout results, race income, etc. BTW - I still run twice a day, and as much mileage as when I was competing - but MUCH slower now! Good luck.

This sounds like Gail Kingma.

Took a chance organizing a race, helping others, and couldn’t make the same commitment to only helping myself. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, plus many will run after I’m gone...

nope. but I used to run against her.

Gertas wrote:

I think the government should pay people to run 5 miles a day. These costs would be far, far less than what they spend in health care costs. Now that I think about it I may get involved with something like this to make it happen.

Incredible idea. Pair this with the Soda Tax and maybe the US would be able to afford decent care for people who have diseases caused by things other than a horrible lifestyle.

I ran college xc, then was heavy on the 5K and 10K circuit in my 20's. In my 30's I started running marathons. Now, in my 40's, I just recently started to run without training to compete.

I'll admit, it's been a difficult transition. Mostly, I achieved the time goals I set for myself and feel I'm capable of. Once time goals were in the bag, in my late 30's I found that my motivation to do the difficult workouts, and run in super crappy weather wasn't there. Last year I was on a 20 miler and just stopped at about 8 miles and asked myself what I was doing. Then it started happening more frequently on longer runs. After about 10 miles, I would just become disinterested.

I just ran NYC marathon for fun in a time that was about 40 minutes slower than if had I been training hard (I had a time qualifier entry from a spring 2018 marathon). Running that race gave me the rush that makes me want to train hard again. But back home after a few weeks, I really have no desire to run more than 10 miles and do mile repeats at 5:15, or run when it's dark, cold and windy.

I think the biggest thing that sapped my motivation is that I feel like I've maximized my talent, in terms of running times. I really enjoyed trying to better myself consistently. But I think it's also probably that I'm getting older and losing testosterone or whatever else happens to the body I don't want to admit now that I'm in my 40's. However, I've found running without worrying about racing or missing a workout is liberating.

DW wrote:

Also, people don't know fk all about training. They run 1-2 hours a day and think they're "in great shape" lol. Try only resting 1-2 hours a day and run the rest sissy

I have done this a couple of times. It's pretty hard and it's called multiday running.

StayHydrated wrote:

Just wondering how may people on this board run for the pure joy of it and/or exercise only and do no racing. If you currently do fall into this category, at one time were you big into racing and just decided to stop training altogether? If so, was the decision/transition difficult? What circumstances led to the decision to keep running but do no racing?

After running in high school and one year of college, I started working and ran just for fun, really having no desire to race. I went like that for 10 years. I averaged about 60 miles a week, top would be about 67. I tossed my handwritten running logs when I got to 40,000 miles. I figured I knew what I was doing by then.

And then around age 28 I started racing and I entered the Navy... got into electronics. I had a lot of fun being in shape for the PT test and also started running races and I ran ekiden races in Japan.

Raced fairly often around the Pacific, west coast, then back to the east coast.

Had a pretty serious build from 2004 to 2012. I reached over 90 percentile for the 1-mile and 5,000 age-graded. And then I decided to just chill out, which I'm doing now sometimes running only 25 miles in a week but often getting up over 60. I decided I wanted a little different challenge so I decided to see if I can learn to race walk. It was quite painful in the beginning, I was pretty excited when I could walk a 14 minute mile and then really excited when I got down to a 10 minute mile. Now I can do a morning race walk 5 miles under 8 minute pace. I really have to move your arms and legs at a fast tempo because the stride length is so short. But I really love that quick tempo...188 seems to be a good spot for me but I can get up to 210, so I get to enjoy a quick movement but it's a really low impact so I never really good sore and now that I've learned how to do it I really don't get sore.

Once again I apologize for my phone Google voice to text typing without checking my grammar,

I was just running to improve my abilities, and love it. Problem is, i improved my abilities enough that a team coach noticed and asked me to join their team, which i accepted just because i believe in the sport and i like to support it if i can. So now i have that to look forward to.

When I’m fat I Run for joy and fitness

When I’m fit I run to compete

I’m not going to pay 30 bucks to run a 20+ minute 5k

This is by far the best thread on Let's Run right now.

If you want to be physically fit then you need to do running because running is one of the best exercises which makes you fit. I also use Garmin connect which tracks my activity and gives me the static record of each activity which helps me in analyzing my performance. Garmin express is also an easy to use computer application that monitors and watches the work of the other garmin device.

Download garmin express

It's a simple combination of maturity and facing reality. Being a good husband and father changed my perspective and ego needs. Aging lets you know that trying to match your younger self is folly. Half of the fun of lurking LRC is chuckling at the statements of cocky younger posters knowing what the future holds for most of them.

There are two types of runners: those that quit the moment they can no longer feed their ego and those that embraced it as a way of living.

StayHydrated wrote:

Just wondering how may people on this board run for the pure joy of it and/or exercise only and do no racing. If you currently do fall into this category, at one time were you big into racing and just decided to stop training altogether? If so, was the decision/transition difficult? What circumstances led to the decision to keep running but do no racing?

Nice year to date repost..

I ran on a regular basis for 4 years before running my first 5k. I ran sprints in HS, and got back into running because it was helping me lean up from college booze and fast food, plus I enjoyed the increased wind I felt in pick up hoops. Lifting weights 3-4x a week had me feeling strong, but my running in hoops was painful. I got the desire to sign up for a race after coaching track, and my fellow coach was running his first marathon in 25 years. He was 50 at the time and looked 30. I was beyond intrigued.

I see it all too often, runners go from zero running to a half marathon, or marathon, get all hell bent, and 2 years later, hurt or barely running. It's a vicious cycle.