The experience Part 1

Well I have had a good time reading about where everybody came from as far as their running, and decided that I would throw my story out there.
I don't have much of a cool story but here we go:
I started what I call "running" in around 6th grade. I would get in trouble or have an attitude problem and my mom on time said go take the dog for a run and cool off. Well this little thing became a routine for me, and I started to go run just for the heck of it. I had this route that I ran with the dog and we tried to run as fast is we could go every time. I remember doing well in the 6th grade track meet, but didn't think much of it. I got to middle school and ran a mile on your old dirt track in 6 something, but I really wasn't into running back then. I continued the running with the dog training, and started to focus more on learning how to jump higher instead of running. This became something that I did all of the time. You could catch me out in the middle of the street doing plyometrics with jump soles on. I even was dumb enough to go run 3 miles with those things on one time!! Could not walk right for a week because my calf's were in so much pain. I finally decided to give running a try my senior year of high school. I remember going on the cross country retreat somewhere outside of Canyon City at Coach Millers cabin. Doug Hugill was still the coach when I was there. My first experience with a distance run was during the retreat. They put everybody in vans and drove out this dirt road. At every mile, they asked who wanted to get out and run back to the cabin. I finally got out a 8 or 9 miles and headed back. This was the hardest thing I had done, and I remember thinking, "How on earth will I make it back??!!!" Well I did fine and feel that that jump started my season. The season went pretty well as I progressed quickly and was in the 16's. I ran well for the rest of the season but did not run well at state. That's part one of the experience:

I ran track as well, but just wasn't into it as much. I remember running the 4x800 at regionals as I led off. I ran what I would call the dumbest race ever, running behind, running in the pack, running almost on the dq line and finally running in the front. I came through in 2 flat and handed off the baton, but somehow tripped in the process and fell right down on the track scraping my stomach and shoulder pretty badly. I had to run the mile later that day, and ran horribly. At this point, I had missed out on qualifying for state and started what I call the decline period of running. At the same time, Coach Vandenbusche from Western State wanted me to run for them, but I just wasn't into running enough to make that type of commitment. I pretty much stopped running, and ran I believe one more race in 1999, the Jingle Bell Run here in Colorado Springs.