Run For Your Life: Measuring to succeed

There’s a truth to the proposition that you can’t manage what you can’t measure.

Few activities have better potential for measurement than running or walking. Emergency rooms overload each spring with over-the-hill guys playing baseball too hard at the church picnic and other bad decisions.

They think they can still play the hot corner like they did in high school.

Our sport provides, for good or bad, a far more accurate assessment of your current performance ability.

Realistically, we all slow down with age. It’s not personal. Bill Rodgers won five New York City Marathons at a near 5-minute-per-mile pace. Think about it: That’s 13 miles per hour. Bill now runs our 10K race at about 8 minutes per mile.

We all eventually lose the fight, but attempting to hold back the tide is a worthy effort. Amazing that we have runners over 40 still breaking the 4-minute-mile barrier. The great Irish miler, Eamonn Coghlan, was the first person to do so. (Any readers so inclined should first discuss matters with Mr. “300” Lechmanski.)

Start with your distance. Make progress by adding just a small additional goal — another tree, one more telephone pole, the next cross street — to your daily distance. In the course of a few weeks, you’ll be happy with your increased stamina and surprised at the results.

If you make the small investment in a sports watch (mine is a Timex Ironman Triathlon, under $50 bucks), you can measure your progress to ridiculous precision. If faster times are part of your goals, then just being on the clock will always spur more effort. If you think you know your performance without a stop watch, then you are very different from me.

So, measurement is easy. Make it effective by keeping a written log of your progress. It will add to your discipline and provide essential positive reinforcement.

See you on the race course.

Richard Denning is a member of the Shelter Island Run Board.