My name is David Hall. I live in Greenfield NH. I am not young. I am 58 years old. I’m not thrilled with being 58… but it beats the alternative. I teach in the Fire and EMS service from which I am retired from active duty… I have been an Ambulance Chief and a Deputy Chief on a fire department. I have had an on again, off again love affair with endurance sports across my lifetime. I have not always been fit. When I was much younger I smoked cigarettes and drank a lot of beer. I may have tried a few other things as well. In the 1960s I ran cross-country in high school and hated it, I was more interested in playing music and girls. But, I still ran. I rode a bicycle a lot in my twenties and did some racing… I also smoked and drank beer. In my early thirties I started running again and began road-racing and quit smoking for good. Over the years I have run over two hundred races, thirteen of which were marathons. At 34, I took up the then relatively new sport of triathlon which included my cycling and running background… I had to figure out the swim. I have completed forty plus triathlons. In 1991, 37 years old and at the peak of my fitness I ran my fourth consecutive Boston Marathon. At seventeen miles I was on a sub-three hour pace when something went terribly wrong. A shooting pain went up the back of my right thigh, I did not know it at the time, but I had torn my hamstring. I always finish marathons, this was to be no exception. I hobbled the final nine miles, finishing in just under four hours. Ten thousand people asked me if I was alright, I responded ten thousand times sarcastically that this (my hobbling, hopping contorted gait) was the way I always ran. I was horribly injured, had wildly aggravated it by continuing the race and would not run again for twelve years.
At the age of 49 and eighty pounds overweight, (yes, I’m 6’4”, but it was still very ugly) and now with asthma, I looked in the mirror and vowed not to cross into my fifties this out of shape. Three months in front of my fiftieth birthday I began the journey back to fitness. Nine months later I had lost ninety pounds and was road-racing again. I lost the weight the old fashioned way, I went to bed hungry for nine months, it sucked… and I ran or rode my bike everyday. My first race in twelve years was a 5K. Now in an older age group I was more competitive than ever… I finished fifth. I beat ninety percent of the field in all age groups. I liked that a lot. Race number two earned me a trophy for second. As a young man I typically finished in the top ten percent of a road-race field, but never saw a podium. Now over fifty, the podium was my friend. I won many medals and trophies. At 52 I finally won my first road-race. At 53 I tried senior cycling and became state champion. This allowed me to go to nationals the next year and get my ass handed to me by freakishly fit state champions from other states. Nonetheless, I finally made it to nationals.
And then… another speed bump. I over-trained or over-did, I really don’t know what I did but I hurt my ankle. No worry, I continued to train although I couldn’t run very effectively. My ankle hurt more and more, I continued to train and race, this happened before bike nationals so I focused on riding which didn’t hurt as much. A full year later, in the summer of 2008 I lined up for a 5K on a beautiful summer’s morning. My foot was on fire. I went towards the back of the field at the start, knowing it was going to a rough race. I stood with the less fit more casual runners at the back. I was still very lean and fit looking, dressed in matching singlet and shorts with neon green racing flats. A well intentioned guy in his forties with a bit of a tummy looked at me a bit puzzled and I’m sure with the best of intentions said “shouldn’t you be up at the front?” His obviously kind and complimentary remark broke my heart, it felt like a slug in the gut. I wanted to sit on the ground and cry. I ran poorly, finished and went straight to my truck and drove home. I knew it was over.
Several doctors, X-rays, MRIs and injections later… I was diagnosed with a torn Achilles tendon. The eighteen months I had continued to run, cycle and compete hadn’t helped. I could try surgery, or stop all exercise for a long time and try to heal up. It was unlikely that I would be able to run again. I hated the idea of surgery, so I stopped training. I was depressed about it, ate too much and gained fifty pounds in a year. It took two and a half years of no exercise, but I finally healed… I think. I ran a bit last fall (2010) and did a few slow races at the back of the pack. I ran my first two plus hour half-marathon (ugly)… but I did it. It’s a new world, I’m not fast anymore and I’m more than a little afraid to try to run fast again. Slow and easy… that’s my new mantra.
So the summer of 2011 has passed. “Slow and easy” works (I’m not injured) but isn’t very motivating. It has been a very busy time for me work-wise and I just can’t seem to stay on the fitness track. I’ve run or ridden here and there but not consistently. I’m out of shape. I have always been driven by fitness goals… the simplest of which are upcoming races. I need a goal… but running a 5K in the middle of the pack just doesn’t do it for me. I know… lots of people race socially or whatever you want to call it, I’m just not set up that way. I don’t need to win, but I want to at least be near the front… the middle of the pack is just a little too crowded for me.
Given that I’ve done a lot of different endurance sports, there aren’t a whole lot of interesting things left. Slow and easy has to be part of it, so it will likely need to be long. I run as much as I can off pavement to protect my broken older body, hmmmm…. it’s pretty obvious where this needs to go, can you say “Ultramarathon”. Long, slow and off road, sounds perfect doesn’t it? Plus it’s epic and I love epic stuff. It’s huge and stupid and not many people do it because it is so over the top. It’s for super fitness geeks, complete no-life idiots. So, there’s only one question… where do I sign up?
