WORDS THAT CHANGED MY LIFE:
"ANYONE CAN RUN A 5K"
By John Landsberg, July 2010
It’s funny how seeming small things can turn out to be life-changing events.
That happened to me more than 20 years ago. I was living in Mansfield, Ohio, and a local runner named Brad Ingram had won the Marine Corps Marathon for the second time. It was quite a remarkable accomplishment and when I ran into Ingram at an event I congratulated him.
“Thanks,” he mumbled.
Are you a runner?” he asked me.
“No, not at all,” I said. “I certainly could never do a marathon!”
“Well, you certainly could do a 5K,” he said almost dismissively, adding, “ANYONE can do a 5K.”
That was our one and only conversation. Ever.
Fast forward a few months later when I decided to quit smoking. Okay, to be completely candid, I really didn’t want to quit. My boss decided HE wanted to quit smoking and insisted we quit together---and forced me to bet $100 he could stop smoking longer than me.
I was okay with the no-smoking bet (which I won, but never received the $100. Did I mention he was my boss?), but I was more worried about gaining weight than anything else.
I then remembered the immortal words of Brad Ingram: “ANYONE can do a 5k.” Heck, I thought, I am ANYONE!
So I started walking in the morning. Then I jogged. Then I began running. Somehow I was talked into running a 5K and my son, Todd, 7, decided to join me. I finished the race barely upright thinking I had lost a lung along the route. My son won his age group.
We were immediately hooked on running. At this point let me provide this sage advice to loyal KC Sports & Fitness readers: No one ever just runs a 5K and stops. It never ends there. 5Ks turn into 10Ks, which turn into half-marathons, and, yes, full marathons of 26.2 miles.
Pretty soon my entire family was running. It was not uncommon for my wife, Donna, daughter, Jenny, Todd any myself to enter races as far away as Las Vegas. While I slogged along my son was running in high school (under the tutelage of the late, great runner Tom Dowling) and then at Baylor. Today Todd lives in runners’ heaven---Eugene, Oregon, “Track Town USA.”My daughter ran in high school and will be doing the upcoming Chicago Marathon.
That’s the great thing about running. One minute you are walking, jogging, running and the next minute you know running guru Garry Gribble personally. You end up on the Gribble Running Team. You become friends with Roger Wilkie, the Leawood legend who ran 6-8 miles every day for 24 years. You somehow know that WHB’s Danny Clinkscale ran every day for two decades.
Running is as addictive as any drug. But it is a good drug. It has changed my entire family’s life for the better. There is nothing greater than getting up before dawn and running a race as a family. We have an entire wall in my basement filled with the race numbers we have accumulated over the years.
Running is fun and best of all, running is easy. Just get a decent pair of shoes and start running.
And keep in mind the immortal words of a champion marathoner, “ANYONE can run a 5-K…”
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