how it all started (my first race)

I wasn’t always a runner.  My sister Kathy, she was the runner in the family.  Then one day back in 2005, I found myself toeing the line at our local 5k turkey trot on Thanksgiving day.  I had been suckered into getting up early and running a race.  Why was I doing this?  Well, I guess I was out there running a race with my runner sister because I had ran my mouth a little too much… and a long story short, she bet me she could beat me at 5k race. 

I didn’t really train for the race, but I was in pretty good shape.  I trained in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu 5 days a week, sometimes twice a day.  I was in very good shape when it came to my cardio, and I ran a mile or two here and there.  I wasn’t into running at this time of my life.  Running was hard, and a chore.  I didn’t enjoy it, and it was far from being fun and how I wanted to spend my free time.

So.. Here I am, up early on a Thanksgiving morning, getting ready to run my first race.  My only goal was to beat my sister, and that was my only goal. 

I remember the race starting and I took off, not knowing how hilly and hard the course was that we were running on.  I kept looking over my shoulder to check if Kathy was behind me.  I pulled away from her pretty good within the first mile.  The air was cold and my lungs were burning, I wanted the race to be over fast.  I was not enjoying myself.  Somehow I managed to finish ahead of my sister.

Kathy wasn’t happy at the end of the race.  She’s the runner, she’s ran multiple marathons, half marathons, and other distances.  Somehow I managed to dig deep and finish ahead of her.  She crossed the finish line and walked right up to me.  There was no hug, no congratulations, she just said one thing to me before walking off very angrily.  She said, “We’re running the Fresno Half-Marathon next year!!!  Good luck!!”

This wasn’t good.  I didn’t even know how far a half marathon was back then.  I asked one of the guys I trained Jiu-Jitsu with, who was a runner, what the distance of a half marathon was.  When he told me 13.1 miles I wanted to die.  How the hell am I going to run that far?  How do you train for one of these things? 

I couldn’t believe this was happening.  How do you run 13.1 miles and survive?  The distance sounded suicidal.  Could my body even handle that kind of mileage?  So many questions started rolling through my head…



until next time… keep running!!!!