My first Blog entry

With a little encouragement from Frank and Emmy I have finally decided to start my own blog. I plan to use this mainly for my running activities to start with, but hope to then add some other personal bits and pieces.

I took up running at the end of 2003 after quite a few years of going to watch my brother, Pete, run the Branford Road Race, Fairfield half marathon and the New Haven Labor day 20k. He also ran the New York City marathon in 1996. My other brother, Richard, who still lives in England is also an avid runner. I have watched him run The Great North Run half marathon in the North of England several times also. I had always loved the atmosphere at races and really wanted to get that feeling of accomplishment that you get upon crossing the finish line. However, I'd done a little running in high school and never cared for longer distances and disliked running on the roads. The past few times I had attempted to run I ended up quitting within the first quarter of a mile. Things turned around when at the end of 2003 I got together with a co-worker, Rich, who also had little experience with running and we started out with a lunchtime walk/run routine that consisted of mostly walking. It took us several months to get up to about 3 miles of running with no walk breaks and then Rich suggested we enter into the Savin Rock 5k road race in West Haven on August 1st, 2004. It was a pretty flat course and perfect for a first race. I had to take several walk breaks since I had started out too fast, but I finished the race in 30 minutes and 15 seconds and was instantly hooked on racing. I now run in races almost every weekend, except for the times that I have been injured. To date I have run 151 races including 3 marathons and one ultra marathon and have run the Great North run in England. I am currently in training to run in this year's New City marathon and hope to run another ultra marathon next spring.