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How Serious am I About Running?

Carey asked me how serious I am about running.

I'd been thinking about this a fair amount lately, so I had a ready answer.

My primary goals are to have fun and to be healthier.

At this point, having just finished Week 4 Day 1 of C25K, I still think running on the road is pretty boring. If it weren't for my iPhone's music I don't know what I'd do. I have not gotten "hooked" at all like when I first played golf or soccer or hockey.

I keep hearing from a lot of people that you'll get hooked, and that running is a "slow hook." I keep hearing that once I can run three miles I'll want to push it to four. Five. Six. 13.1. 26.2. More. I'm not so sure about that. Marathons take all kinds of time to run and even more time in training, and really, running for four hours? Doesn't strike me as fun, and I'm not sure it will.

I think that eventually I'll enter some 5Ks and/or 10Ks but anything more than that would require time I don't have. What I do hope to do, though, is run trail races. Those sound like a lot of fun - running around through the woods ducking and jumping and scrambling up and down hills and things. I loved running through the woods as a kid, and I think it'd be great to strap on some shoes and dart around nature.

So I really look forward to some trail racing, or even if I don't do it officially, to running around Asbury Park or something with a pair of sneakers, an iPod, and a water bottle.

I'm serious about running. I don't know how you can't be. I've limited my spending thus far, but I've got some good minimalist style shoes, I've got a few articles of clothing (many of my hockey and golf under-garments are good for winter running as well, so I save there), and eventually I'll pick up a Garmin wrist watch when I'm done with C25K and need to begin tracking my own runs (hence my post yesterday on GPS apps for the Mac). I may make some "running buddies" (I have 15 or so on DailyMile now, only one or two of which I've ever actually met). So I'm "serious" in that I am committed to doing this, but I'm not going to be running any marathons, so far as I know, any time in the next, oh, 50 years either.