Once A Runner…

Reading Once A Runner for the Umpteenth Time

Again to Carthage is on order from Borders, so I’m rereading John L. Parker, Jr.’s excellent Once A Runner again. You know, I’m not sure when or where I bought my copy of Once A Runner, but it’s from the Third Printing, November 1978, and it has a Cedarwinds price sticker inside the front cover — $8.95. It seems I’ve owned it forever. I remember reading it many times throughout the 80’s, so I reckon I’ve had it a long, long time.

Anyway, after reading Tom Jordan’s Pre, Amby Burfoot’s The Principles of Running, and thumbing through Hal Higdon’s How to Train, it’s rather pleasant to kick back and visit with Quenton Cassidy again while my homemade beef jerky slowly dries out in the oven over the next six hours.

I need to study Jack Daniels’ “White Starting Plan” with a calendar at my elbow to plan out completion of that program with a sensible flow into following-on with the “Red Intermediate Plan.” Then I can start looking at a reasonable train-up for the Cowtown 10K, but right now I just want to sit here and relive the old days through reading of Quenton’s running.

Yeah, yeah, I’m getting a little antsy after the success of yesterday’s little bit of jogging. I’m feeling pretty enthusiastic, I guess, and maybe a little bit cocky, sitting here comfortably in a pair of Levi’s 501 jeans I couldn’t even begin to button up just a month ago. But — dammit — the legs felt great after yesterday — not a peep out of the knees today — and I’m starting to think this is looking very doable right now. And that is encouraging.

Honestly, I’ll never be even as fast as I once was, nor become as fast as I once had (and wasted) the potential to be, so I’m not pretending I ever will. But I’m feeling very optimistic about just being able to run again within the very near future, given a reasonable period of building up, of course, and keeping my head on straight about properly progressing.

Oh, I just thought of another book I once had the chance to buy but for some odd reason never did — Paul Christman’s The Purple Runner. I’ve been scouring the Internet here and there for it, and even have the local library hunting for it, but I still haven’t found it available at all, much less at a reasonable price.

I’ll probably remember some more books I once read and would like to get my hands on again, but for now it’s time to get back to Quenton teaching Jack Nubbins an important lesson about racing the morning training runs.