It is certainly fine to run and not do races. Besides health reason, I like racing though. Not as a competion, because I am never that fast, but racing keeps me honest in my training.
I started running when I was young when I was in high school. I was never part of organized running group. I didn’t join track or do community races.
I do love running early on. I think I was influenced by couple earlier friends. One who impressed me was Dan who went for a try-out. The other was Jitty, who ran from his house to church, I think maybe about a mile or two, but at the time in my mind it was a marathon distance. Later, I was impressed by someone at church, Sarah, who completed a marathon when she was in college. She was only a few years older than me, but I felt like I was floored by her achievement. Later in college, I happened to meet some ultra runners, and again, the distances they spoke of seemed too foreign to me – 24 hour run, 100 mile, they were beyond my comprehension. Yet, little did I know, they were the early seeds planted in me and led me to become who I am today. This didn’t happen until for another 15 years.
As a teenager, I just went out and ran. It has been something I always enjoyed even in my adult life. It was something I could do and did not require a lot of things, money or someone to do it with. I was always a self sufficient person.
Racing against time and other people, the concept itself was introduced to me much later in life, in 2016 (fairly recent depending on your perspective). Not that I didn’t know about it, but I had no interest and mostly due to lack of money at the time I was growing up to even as early adult. I did a 5K in college and a 10 miler and I ran them because it was kind of required in one of the course I took. What kind of class? Well…
I run not to be faster than others but mostly to beat my own records. Now as I am older, beating the records is out of the question, I ran to finish the race by the required time.
It was very natural for me to signup for a race, once I became more interested in it. I found out about a local 10k race from a friend who was doing it. After the first one, I wanted to do more. Last few years, races like these were part of my training for longer distance races.
Though I don’t care much about records now, but they are a way to keep track of my performance at the specific moment in time. I devoted a page to for the milestones of my running history, for the likes of what my personal best for a particular distance.
I have done 5Ks, 10Ks, and even longer formats. Much longer races. My current quest is some day to do a 200 mile.
I ventured into marathons (26.2 miles) and by now i have like 20 ish of them. I did about 30-ish of the half marathons (13.1 miles). These distances no longer a challenge for me. My goal is to run a marathon in all 50 states in the US. So far I have run in 11 states. I hope to set up a page somewhere to keep track of this progress. It has been a slow going. I don’t think I will reach this running goal until closer to retirement age of 65. I know if I am seriously trying to finish it, I could do it under 3 years (by 2030 is a reasonable estimate).
A few of my favorites so far: Carlsbad Marathon in California, Jack & Jill’s Downhill Marathon in North Bend, Washington. There are so many to choose from. I haven’t had a bad time at any of my races. So if I am asked about this, I might come up a different answer each time. As to why Carlsbad or Seattle? It is because I got to travel outside my state by flying. I love San Diego, or all the west coast in fact.
From marathons, it was a natural progression to try something longer. I had a few 50k too, but I count them to be similar to marathons since the distance for 50K is almost the same as a marathon.
As for 50 milers, these do challenge me for a time. JFK (2019) was my first. Stone Mill ultra (2000), and Grayson Highlands (2021). After doing 5-6 of these, they became less scary. So I moved onto longer distance. 70 mile, I did the Laurel Highlands the entire trail from beginning to the end. Ultra gave you a feel of accomplishment when you ran a distance in a day what used to take me a week to go through. It felt really good once I had that ability to go for any distances less than this.
So far I have done a few 100 milers: Rocky Raccoon (my first), and Rim to River. I attempted the MMT. My forth was Blackbeard’s Revenge. I found longer distances being more enjoyable.
My next evolution is to run longer than 100 mile races. So far, I am still being fearful. It is a different beast when it goes over a third day. There is no in between, it is either 100 or 200. There are not many races beyond that. Things get real expensive once it goes beyond the 100 miler. It is my next frontier.
I am looking to run more and more races each year. Usually I prepare my schedule six months to a year in advance. I am into what is called a ‘race-cation’, which basically I look for places to go where I can run. 2021 to present have been such. I am seeing so for the next 5-10 years, pretty much until I finish all my 50 states.
Question, do I bored with just running? no. I find it itself a purpose for me to travel. And I travel for it. I find it very fulfilling. As for my companion, yes it can be boring for them. I found a few friends who do like to travel for races.
[to do] I do hope when I have time to link to more particular pages about my progression.
- Here is a brief summary of my runs in recent years from fall of 2017 to fall 2021 [run1], and 2022-2024 [run2]
- a list of runs I remembered [all]
- some notable highlights of my runs [best]
- (to do) I hope to set up a 50 states tracking page. I don’t know when I will get around to it
- (to do) Countries. It would be cool to have a travel page to highlight the places visited
- (to do) A post about my grand slam experience
I want to do more series type of races. They are called a slam or I make one up myself, e.g., midwest slam, rocky slam, 50 states slam
Beyond: I aim for 100×100. Also for a longer distances like trekking across the continent or hiking a very long trail like the CDT/PCT/AT.
(inital written 2021, updated Dec 2025)
In awe 