Posts Tagged ‘side stitches’
Ted Corbitt
I’ve spent much of the evening reading about Ted Corbitt, and realizing I was wrong… I’d heard about Corbitt’s battles with racism and I just assumed he lived in the South. It turns out, though that he and I are from the same place – Cincinnati, Ohio. Ted Corbitt was a actually a member of the University of Cincinnati’s track team. During college he ran about 200 miles a week. Later in his life, while training for his first hundred mile run, he set a goal to run 1200 miles…in one month! He fell short by about 200, but still, wow!
At the end of this week, I will have surpassed the 500 mile mark since my training began in late September. I’ve never kept track of my miles before, but I’m finding it’s incredibly motivating. Because I’m competitive, it’s nice to be able to have something tangible to see and then try to beat it. Before the new year, I was thinking about making a resolution, and I thought maybe I’d set a mileage goal of 1500. Doing the math though, that was less than 30 miles a week. I worried I’d hit my mileage mark in July, and then just flounder the rest of the year. Ultimately I decided not to make this my resolution and instead focus on increasing my number of high mileage races and improving in each event.
Who knows what’s next.
I feel like Corbitt would be proud. In the book I am reading, First Marathons by Gail Waesche Kislevitz, Corbitt writes: “You don’t need a goal, you don’t need a race, you don’t need the hype of a so-called fitness craze. All you need is a cheap pair of shoes and some time. The rest will follow.”
There’s peace in that for me. It’s almost like one of the greatest runners of all time is signing off on my plan for the next year. In addition, I’ll take Corbitt’s words to the start line with me in Miami. When all my worries about hitting the wall, my foot giving out, painful side stitches – start swirling through my head, I’m going to remind myself to stop and think about Corbitt – I have the shoes and I’ve put in the time.
If you aren’t familiar with Corbitt’s story, it’s worth reading. He’s a legend. Oh, and his birthday is January 31- the same day as the Miami Marathon.
