How did you get started into distance running?

I wasn't much of an athlete, but I could beat all my friends to the other end of the field in soccer... I just couldn't control the ball when I got there. Some of the soccer players suggested track, since straight line motion (and only that) seemed to be my forte.

I seemed to go up in distance on the average of an event per year: 100m, 200m, 400m (freshman in college) until I reached 800m. That's when I started learning all those esoteric little distance running things like breathing when you run, running everyday, how handy those new-fangled nylon shorts with liners in them were....

By senior year in college, I tried cross country, and that was pretty much that for the short stuff.

Bubba1,

I was in the 2nd grade and ran in my school's 'cross country' race (actually 3 or 4 laps of a parking lot). Somehow I finished second overall and qualified to run in a local schools x-country championship. There I came 4th or 5th in the 8 and under age division. I was hooked and it's never left me. Now I'm 37 and I've run 14 miles today.

Monty

Got cut from the freshman soccer team.

9th grade: The basketball coach required ALL players to do a fall sport. As a 5' 100 lb point guard, he gave me the corss country coach's phone number rather than the football coach. I was about the 25th runner, then we had the first meet. I couldn't understand 1/2 through why all the good guys were slowing down. It was actually me speeding up, but I didn't realize it. Monday at school, my name was on the announcemnts for winning. Everyone tooknotice including the girls. I was hooked.

Got good grades as a freshman at my new HS, and started getting a reputation as a ?brain.? Thought I could counterbalance that to some extent by going out for a sport. At our small HS, we only had 6 sports: XC, football, basketball, baseball, tennis, and track. I was too small for football, too short for basketball, and too uncoordinated to play baseball. I didn?t know how to play tennis, so since it was spring, I went out for track. The coach took one look at me and said, ?You?re a miler.?

If we must:

I ran to get in shape for HS soccer. Played Varsity and scored 20 goals during sophomore season (avg of 2 a game)--while running track as well. Last game of season, screwed knee...and was forced to give up soccer (lateral movement was restricted).

I continued running after that because I would win most races. Racing against skinny unathletic HS kids was easy.

This is the truth; it is your problem if you fear this reality.

My basketball coach told me to join a fall sport as we were going to press in basketball and I had to get in shape...we only had two fall sports and they were football and cross so I took cross...

When I was 10 years old I went and saw "Rocky" and got so pumped up I started getting up in the morning and running. I even slugged down the raw eggs once. Later on I started running the mile and a half to school and back home. This was before I did any organized track. I played football but at 72 pounds in 7th grade it wasn't easy. When I went out for the mile in the spring I found that all you had to do was hurt a little longer than the rest and you could win races. And then that became my main sport.

I am right there with Mike_McCready. And soccer was just so much fun. Too bad I sucked.

Ran out of track eligibility in Junior College so I couldn't run the 400 meters anymore. So I went out for XC where I was our 8th man on the team in Junior College.

Sophomore year of HS I realized the cool kids had varsity letter jackets and I wanted to be like them. I went out for track, and then XC, and I was hooked. I got the letter, too!

But....you took one look into the silver-backed glass and discovered that not all kids who wear jackets are cool didn't you?

Wanted to turn out for a sport in H.S. Thought I would try track. Before the season started I marked off a half mile loop. After 10 miles of continous running I figured I must of had some distance ability.

Then you discovered that the longest distance was a 3200m (in some states, 5k).

I started when I was 13. My dad ran 5 miles every day, so I joined him one day. We ran out, and it seemed like we were going to run to the next town. When we hit the turnaround, my dad asked how I was doing. I told him that this running bit was easy. He proceeded to beat me back to the house by about 3 minutes. I didn't realize that he had been holding back. However, I was hooked.

FWIW, I was 16 before I found out that not everyone's dad ran 5 miles/day.

Ok, here's mine,

My Dad was one of the running hoards in the 70s, and in 1974 at the age of not quite 8, I went with him and his running partner to the metro park where they were going to run a 5 miler. He told me that I could stop at the end of the pond and watch them run around it (you could see all the way across) and then join them at the end - total would have been about 2 miles for me. Instead, I took off and ran the whole 5 miles for my first real distance run ever. I was so sore the next day, but from then I was hooked.

It wasn't until middle school though when we had our "field day" that I realized I was simply better than everyone. In the sixth grade I lined up for the mile run against all the known jocks, and no one had any idea that I could beat them. I did of course, and the word got up to the high school coach, and that was that.

FlagPole Willy---Unfortunately for you, the word didn't get to the 7 minute training runners you dogged on a training run. They surely would have bowed down in your presence.

It was the summer before my freshman year in high school. A very smart coach called me up, introduced himself, and invited me to join the high school cross country team. No, I'm not saying he was smart because he called and invited ME. He was smart because he called and invited EVERY KID ENTERING NINTH GRADE! A coach that makes this effort is bound to get at least a handful of kids every year. Anyway, as for me, when he asked me to come out for cross country, I said "Um, okay sure. What is it?"

Much to my own benefit, I've been a runner and a track fan ever since. Thanks for making those phone calls, Mr. Schanbacher.

In freshman year of HS, in my gym class we had a 1 mile (or so) run and I did a lot better than I expected (like 8th out of 30 kids). Then, I was in sophmore year of high school and saw pictures in the NY Daily News of Bill Rodgers racing Garry Bjorklund in the 1977 New York City Marathon, and thought, that looks easy. Wrong!!! 25 years later, it's STILL NOT EASY!!