Where I come from

Note to readers: this post is very long, but if you do not have time, just read up to the black line in the middle of the page, then there are only details.

Sometimes I look on the internet for experiences in order to understand the training methods in field, not only from running tables you can find around. A problem is to understand from which level the runner as started. In short, I find an interesting blog, with accurate descriptions of workouts and all other things but the posts always start from a certain point of the athletic life of the narrator. I can almost never understand how he started, how he got to the starting point of his story. The information that is missing in my opinion is crucial. It’s always interesting reading the stories of those who fly at 4,5’ per mile, but I'm not sure I can get to do these workouts, it would not make any sense. Instead it would be helpful to understand how this person arrived at the 4,5 minutes per mile, it is not something that happens in a month! That could be a great source of inspiration for anyone.

Said that, I try to make sure that my blog is interesting for everyone, both for those like me and also for those who arrive now to the world of running (and for all others who fall in the middle!).

So I will describe my athletic history. In this post I'll make a summary of the pre-race period, then I will try to write posts about specific patterns of training and racing in recent years.

My recent life of runner starts in September 2010, when I’ve been back running for the last time, in the sense that since then I have not stopped anymore! In a nutshell, I was 38 years old, completely inactive for more than a year, about 13 kg overweight and with limited available time. But I had not lived a sedentary life, but I practiced in the past different sports, never continuously, never seriously, but it is important to say that I was not starting from scratch. Athletically I already had a little background.

I say this for those who wonder at the fact that my first race (13 km) was run at an average of 7’23’’ per mile and they say "yeah, but you are strong runner, my first race I 've done 10'”. But I had already run that time in the past, the muscles have memory, with training the body changes and when you stop you don’t lose everything.

In the next posts I will explain how starting from "almost inactive" in September 2010 I arrived here.

In the following, however, curious people can read what my athletic life was before starting to run seriously. Best luck!

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I will start with Adam and Eve, but do not worry, I will be brief!

So at the tender age of six, I was introduced to swimming, as it happened and still happens to many Italian children in school age. I swam until I was 10 years old (I had just started racing), when I crushed a finger in a door and I had to bring bandages for more than a month. After I didn’t return in the pool. I even do not remember why, but probably I didn’t like swimming so much.

In middle school I used to play handball with the school team, left winger with a powerful shot but weak ankles. I took a lot of distortions and this is a problem that I still have not completely eliminated.

Now I am at high school: football obviously. Soft training and without much consistency, but I enjoyed a lot. When I was 16 years old I enjoyed a racing bike. My training method was very simple: I did a tour of a dozen kilometers around the house and every single time I tried to go faster! Here we already see the "jonathan livingstone" spirit, I already looked for my limits! I also started to train with a team, but the experience finished after a total smashing, when I lost the bike handlebars downhill .... you can imagine how I stopped.

At the end of high school I began to attend a bodybuilding gym, my prevalent sport in the university years. I continued to have some football game and in order to be not completely unprepared I used having some run, more or less once a week.

Fresh out of university, almost sedentary in the army period, when I started working I still felt the need to do something, in short I like sport and I cannot stay inactive at all.

I was 26, about ten kilograms overweight, I ran a couple of times a week, always with the traditional method of a record at each exit. I made a trip to the park about 3 miles long and I got to reach 7'12'' per mile ... eeeeeh I did not still own a gps then .... the path was measured with my paces! A few years later, with the GPS, I found that all the miles were shorter at least 10%!

A day I took a mega distortion on a small branch of a tree, I didn’t even go to the emergency room, but I had to give up the sport to heal completely  In the meantime, I was married, and I also took a boat to sail, which I devoted most of the free time with. So basically nothing more running until I was 32 years old! It was 2004, my first son was born! I was now at least 15 kg overweight, I weighed 80 kg. I sold out the boat as soon as I realized that I did not want to navigate and risk (and only those who sailed knows what I mean) with a small child and then I had no hobby anymore! And here running came again. Same training methods (records), often early in the morning, but not early as today. None seriously yet. In 2006, the second son arrives and then I stopped again in order to be a full time dad. 

Then I start again in 2008, I used to run during the lunch break to optimize the time, and one day lamenting the fact that I did not know a measured track close to the office, a colleague said to me: "don’t you use the gps?" And me: "gps what?”. Long story short, I found a new world. You will understand, I go crazy for numbers, I could measure all the workouts, download them, study them, analyze them ... a godsend . The stimulus made me training more consistently and seriously, 3 times a week. And no more with the record method, but using a well-known running table found in internet.

After 6 months I had improved a lot, and I ran in training a 7'15 '' per mile (5 km personal best), real time though. One day I injured an ankle tendon, and so I stopped. At the time I did not know that sometimes you have to change shoes! In 2009, my third son was born (the last eh!). And then I was inactive until September 2010.