I’ve been training pretty hard for nothing in particular. I’m going to be doing a few upcoming races but I don’t have any real reason for doing well other than to see how good I can do personally. I’m never going to be the best and there is no financial gain at the end of the road. Yet for some reason I continue to push myself to see how fast I can run at my elder age of 28. I don’t think I’ll ever match the speed I had when I was younger but I did manage a 16:54 for 3 miles tonight which will tie the time I ran 10 days earlier. I felt terrific and can undoubtedly finish 2 more miles at 6 minute pace to come close to a 29 minute time for this Frostbite 5 miler. In the past years from out of college to present day, I’ve been a 6 minute miler, no better. This new found endurance and speed is really making me re-think my capabilities. I’ve been running 4-5 times a week but I think I could push it one more gear to really test my potential as a human being. There’s no reason to do it other than to test my own capabilities in my current body.

That’s why I believe the title of this post is so interesting. When I was 14-17 and running track in high school, I was a puny, weakling who finally started growing a little bit junior year. I ran times that were faster than I can do now but that’s because I had more dedication and didn’t drink any alcohol. At that time in my life, I was pretty serious about running but wasn’t 100% dedicated which is what you have to be to “grow into your potential.” For some unexplainable reason, I’ve found that dedication again and feel that I should see if I can better my high school times. My plan is to train hard until the Frostbite, see what I run, and re-evaluate from there. This 28 year old body feels like it can be bigger and stronger than my 17 year old body. I’m curious to see what happens.