Welcome to my new Blog

Welcome to my new blog

Written 3rd May 2013, Brisbane.

A permanent feature on my bedside table is the biography of one of Australia's greatest athletic coaches Percy Ceritty, the 'trainer of champions' including olympians Herb Elliot and John Landy. The book is called 'Why Die?' and it chronicles Percy’s metamorphous from troubled and 'old' 40 year-old to a super-fit, vibrant and focused 50-something. Percy changed his life and his lifestyle and found personal success and satisfaction during his mature years. He lived a full and active life into his late 70s. At a time when most people were slowing down he set himself impossible challenges, worked out how to achieve them then set about achieving them. What an inspiration.

This blog is the journal of my personal challenge to become who I want to be, and what I want to achieve.  I am 55 years young, healthy, reasonably intelligent and somewhat determined. And, with the exception of ready cash and a healthy asset base, I have a lifestyle and a life structure that enables me to follow my dream. I am a lucky man.

So what do I want to do? Six things - Become a better person; live a very healthy lifestyle; be super-fit (and not just for my age); travel to nice places and 'go run'; run marathons around the world, and be deeply happy and satisfied.

I have some minor physical limitations that mean I cannot run fast but that is not going to stop me from having a go at achieving my goals. The running goals will just have to be slower than I would prefer.

My greatest immediate challenge is to learn to run a marathon in under 4hrs 40mins. To achieve it, this year I will run a number of half marathons, 15k and 10k fun runs and various other events. I will also train myself to be stronger physically and mentally (by weight training, interval training and regular long runs) and I will finally get my weight down to below 90kgs and < 14% Body Fat (Currently 96kgs and 19% BF).

Along the way I will complete training runs and fun runs in as many different places as I can find, I will try to learn every day and from every experience and training sessions, and I will look for the fun and the laughter in life.

Most importantly, whilst I will run often I will also stop often to 'smell the roses', and to be inspired by this wonder-full world. I agree with Percy’s idea of 'Why die?' but more than that, I want to say ‘Why not live?’ I want to experience life, I want to love it, live it, laugh with it, and be amazed by it. I want my life to be a great journey of personal discovery and improvement, and of challenges set, met and conquered.

So this is the journal of that journey. A journal of learning, of slowly improving as a runner and as a human being, of looking for the fun, the wacky and the straight-out weird in the day-to-day challenge of attempting to achieve my goal. It’s a journal of the people I meet, and the things that happen, along the way.

It will be a personal and hopefully honest account of my attempts to become the endurance athlete, and the person I want to be. I hope you will find it interesting and you will come with me.

So, until next time……. 'keep living, laughing, lovin' and runnin'

‘Wandering James’, the Slow Runner