Where I come from - 2 - September 2010 April 2011

Second episode of my athletic history.

In the previous post (link), I described how I had come to the last act of resumption of running activities. Last because since then I have never stopped again (except for short periods). I did it not because the story itself was interesting but to make it clear that I had not had a previous completely sedentary life and that I had already run for example ( without ever racing) in the past  at 7'12'' for 5 km.

We are in September 2010, I am 38 years old, I’ve completely stopped running for more than a year, about 13 kg overweight and with limited available time. But the unconscious is again sending me another stimulus, without even needing reasoning on the fact that I was overweight for example. To me it's almost a biological fact, at some point I feel the physical need to move. 

I bought a new pair of shoes because I attributed to the old one (probably correctly) the injury that stopped me the last time. I chose a pair of Pegasus 27 and returned back to the park. I had planned 3 weekly workouts, because I have always been convinced that less is useless. The first few weeks I was really slow, like every time you start again, and did very few kilometers. Until January 2011, I didn’t go over 16 miles/week!  After I increased slightly, bringing an average of 19...

The training program, I found on some website, consisted in: a day of short interval training (5-6x1000, 10x500 or 20x200 on alternating week), a medium run or progressive (which I ran at 90% of HRmax!) And a 10-15 km long, slow run (really not so slow, I did it at 85%).

My times were these: intervals (1000) 4'50''/km, medium at 5'15''/km, slow run at 5'40''/km more or less. If it can seem fast for a beginner, I remember once again that I was not always a sedentary in my life.

I began to lose some weight and slightly improve the times.

In March 2011, the same fellow who had lent me the gps and I had not seen for a while told me he had begun racing with a team: "why do not you try racing?” he said me.

Here, in fact in the past few years I had already thought about it, then I had renounced because it was needed to be a member of a club, in short, I wanted not so much to deal with the bureaucratic efforts. This time, however, the game went differently and I began to think seriously about it. I looked at the Italy running calendar. In Rome there are races almost every week and I immediately spotted one that fascinated me, the Appia Run. The route followed the Appia Antica for some miles, then the Caffarella Park and finally finished in the Caracalla stadium. 

The race, however, was within some days, the 17^th April 2011, so I had to hurry with the medical examination and registration.

I hesitated a bit but then I made a phone call to the club that reassured me that I was still in time for the race. And so the adventure began!

In the next "flashback" post I'll just talk about my first race, which like all of the first things, I’ll never forget!