For the first 37 years of her life, becoming a die-hard runner wasn’t on Carol Gore’s bucket list.

“I never had a desire to start running,” says Gore, who lives in Fort Mill, S.C. “In high school, I hated gym class. I was always the last one picked.”

Participants in fall's Fit-Tastic program queue up for the Monster Dash 5K, that program's graduation.

But two years ago, Gore worried that her 2-mile-a-day, five-day-a-week walking regimen was no longer cutting it in her battle of the bulge. A friend suggested running just a bit during her walks to burn more calories.

Gore gave it a try. She was smitten.

That November she ran an 8K (5 miles) Turkey Trot; the following year, 2009, a half marathon. She’s training for another of the 13.1-mile races in September. “I became hooked,” says Gore, who is 40.

During the nation’s first running boom in the 1970s, if you wanted to be a runner you were told to run – a lot. Thirty-, 40-, 50-mile weeks were de rigueur, running till it hurt the ultimate sign that you were on track. Only if you were suffering heatstroke or had a broken leg was it OK to walk.

Today, that philosophy has been flipped on its ear. As Gore discovered by taking her friend’s advice, if you want to be a runner it’s not only OK to walk, you may get in trouble with your coach if you don’t.

* * *

The notion of a running program that encourages walking was pioneered by Jeff Galloway, a member of the 1972 U.S. Olympic team. As a marathoner, Galloway was intimately familiar with the toll running took on the body. In the 1970s, Runner’s World magazine estimated that about two-thirds of runners reported some form of injury – from shin splints to stress fractures – in any given year.

Many of those injuries, Galloway determined, were the result of trying to go too far, too fast. So he started his Galloway running program, which stressed the novel approach of running/walking.

The author, about to graduate from fall's Fit-tastic program.

“We can set up a run/walk ratio that will allow a beginner to sense some degree of success,” says John Lineberger, who oversees the Galloway program in Charlotte. “If an individual is new to running we can make the run 30 seconds, or 20 seconds, or 15 seconds, or 10 seconds of running followed by one minute of walking.” That ratio is gradually shifted as the runner is weaned off walking.

“A lot of people are prejudiced against Galloway,” says Gore, who enrolled in the Charlotte program to train for her half marathon. “They think the walking part is sissy stuff. But I was able to do 11:36 miles in my first half marathon, and I felt good the next day.”

So successful has the Galloway method proven that it’s been adapted for shorter runs. Especially popular are programs preparing nonrunners to run a 5K (3.1-mile) race in three months or less.

Amanda Clark, assistant manager of the Fleet Feet store in Raleigh, says the store’s 3-year-old No Boundaries program draws about 80 participants; Dexter Pepperman with Run for Your Life in Charlotte says that store’s program, offered five times a year, attracts about the same. Like most run/walk programs, these include at least two training sessions a week, coaching, seminars on training and nutrition, e-mail support and a T-shirt.

Most participants are female – about 70 percent, estimates Clark – and ages range from the 20s to 70. Some want to run the entire race; others are content to walk 3.1 miles.
Run/walk programs are driving a running renaissance that’s seen the number of runners in the U.S. increase 57 percent over the past 10 years, to 35.9 million, according to the National Sporting Goods Association. In 2008, the NGSA reported that running/jogging was the nation’s fastest-growing form of exercise.

* * *

Jean Hagen-Johnson, a charter member of the 10-year-old Beginner Women’s Running Program sponsored by the N.C. Roadrunners Club, says another reason run/walk programs are popular is the moral support. “What I gained the most in the running group,” says the 56-year-old Raleigh resident, “were the really nice friends who enjoyed running for the health benefits and the social aspect.”

Runners struggle together in the group format, they support one another and they advance together.

Georgia Hagen, Jean’s sister and the founder of NCRC’s beginner program, says the main reason women join the program isn’t to lose weight, although that motivator is up there. Rather, it’s to develop a consistent exercise program. The set workouts two or three days a week, the coaching and the sense of camaraderie can have a profound impact come graduation at the program’s target 5K.

“We have had women quite overweight. When they come across that finish line they have tears streaming down their faces,” Hagen says. “They’re so appreciative, so happy. It’s just so rewarding.”

Additional reading

To read more on the current running boom and what’s fueling it, go here.

To ready more about the walking-to-run philosophy, go here.

* * *

The programs

Raleigh

Running Start
Briefly: 11-week program, target race is Race for the Cure 5K on June 12.
Starts: Training began March 27 (late sign-up allowed).
Sponsor: Carolina Godiva Track Club.
Cost: $45 (includes club membership).
More info: gary.schultz@verizon.net or the club Web site.

No Boundaries
Briefly: 12 weeks, target race is Race for the Cure 5K on June 12.
Starts: Began last Wednesday (sign-up through April 4)
Sponsor: Fleet Feet, Raleigh.
Cost: $85.
More info: Fleet Feet at 832-8275 or here.

Fit-Tastic
Briefly: 13 weeks, target race is Race for the Cure 5K on June 12.
Starts: Under way (began March 15; late sign-up allowed); fall session begins in August.
Sponsor: The Athlete’s Foot, Raleigh.
Cost: $60.
More info: 828-3487 or here.

Women’s Beginner Running Program
Briefly: 10 weeks, target race is NCRC Women’s Distance Festival 5K on Sept. 26
Starts: Late July.
Sponsor: N.C. Roadrunners Club.
Cost: $75 (includes club membership).
More info: womenbeginnertraining@ncroadrunners.org.

Raleigh Galloway
Briefly: Five-month program, target race is City of Oaks Marathon and Half Marathon on Oct. 31.
Starts: May 22.
Sponsor: Jeff Galloway Training Programs.
Cost: $159 for first-timers, $99 for alumni.
More info: 270-0365  or go here.

Sole Sisters
Briefly: 10-year-old, 14-week, women-only program, target race is Race for the Cure 5K on June 12.
Starts: Began March 9. Registration for this session is closed.
Sponsor: Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center, NC Cancer Hospital.
Cost: Free.
More info: 843-8057, or the Web site.

Charlotte

Interval Running Training
Briefly: 10 weeks, target race is 6th Annual Morrison 5K/10K on May 15.
Starts: Underway (began March 11, late sign-up allowed).
Sponsor: Ballantyne Village YMCA, Charlotte
Cost: $40, $30 for facility members.
More info: (704) 716-4680 or the Web site.

Run for You
Briefly: 9 weeks, target race for current session: Right Moves for Youth Twilight 5K on May 8.
Starts: Underway (began March 16, late sign-up allowed) Coming sessions: May 15, Aug. 3, Oct. 12.
Sponsor: Run for Your Life, Charlotte.
Cost: $99.
More info: (704) 541-9665, or the Web site.

Charlotte Galloway
Briefly: Five-month program, target races vary.
Starts: May 8.
Sponsor: Jeff Galloway Training Programs.
Cost: $159 for first-time marathoners, $99 for marathon alumni, $95 for first-time half-marathoners, $75 for half-marathon alumni.
More info: runwalk26@yahoo.com, or go here.

When I pulled a hamstring early last week playing a pick-up game of kickball, my Fit-tastic running coach, Tim Clark, prescribed a recovery program centering around the RICE — Rest Ice Compression Elevation — approach. And no running, he insisted. Walking, however, was OK. So I decided to tag along with Fit-tastic’s walking component on our weekly Thursday evening workout.

When Fit-tastic was launched in fall 2008, it was conceived as training program intended to take a non-runner and make him or her cable of running a 5K in just 12 weeks. In the two sessions since — spring and this fall — the program has evolved. The current program has five levels, ranging from folks who ran but wanted to run faster and farther, to those just starting out who simply wanted to walk the distance (3.1 miles by American measure). Since I’d been doing a 6-mile trail run once a week, I signed on with the faster/farther group.

I learned quickly that only speed separates the groups.

“I needed the discipline,” Kathy Kidd told me as we kept a brisk pace up Stafford Avenue. Kidd is an entomologist with the state who used to get out in the field more. When she became Biological Control Administer for the state Department of Agriculture, she wound up spending more time in the office. She tried to compensate with walks around the neighborhood, but those were sporadic. She signed on with Fit-tastic last spring, expressing a sentiment I’ve heard over and over: Perhaps a little company would help her commitment. Especially on those days when you really, really don’t feel like working out, but the group is expecting you.

As has been the case with others in the program, she noticed an immediate change in her health.

“My cholesterol is down,” she said.

She’s learned to deal with injuries that might once have dampened her desire to work out.

“I was having shin pain,” Kidd told me. “The coaches — the coaches are great — showed me how stretching can make a difference.”

While Kidd’s goal with this session is to walk the graduation Monster Dash 5k on Oct. 25, the 51-year-old N.C. State grad thinks she may continue with the program and eventually run the race.

Curious about what that next step might entail, I caught up Fit-tastic’s walkers-to-runners coach Sean Kurdys. Sean said the walk-to-run group began in August by running two minutes, then walking for one. Last week, the group was up to 10 minutes of sustained running interspersed with four-minute walking intervals. Starting this week, the group would bump the running segments to 12 minutes, their peak. “After that, we’ll work on running faster.”

Kurdy’s typically coaches elite runners, working with them to tweak their style to trim a second or two from their time. The walk-to-run program required a little research. “I looked around on the internet, looked at Runner’s World, talked to Team in Training and the Galloway people.” That’s how he came up with his run/walk regimen.

He’s also engaged in that time-honored staple of coaching: playing mind games. A couple weeks ago he told his group not to worry about the 10 minutes running/four minutes walking protocol. “Just run when you want, walk when you need to,” he told them. They headed west on Clark Avenue, turned right on Oberlin Road, went up past Craig Street, turned around and came back. A lot of his group ran nearly the whole thing.

“Well,” he told the group when they got back, “at least now you know you can do a 5K.”

What do you mean? they asked.

“You just did the course,” he told them. “That was it.”

Ah, coaches.

* * *

I’m a former runner, ran mostly 10Ks until back and knee issues grounded my waffle trainers when I hit 30. Twenty-three years later (and a few pounds lighter), I decided to try a 5K, the Oct. 25 Monster Dash. Read previous posts about my experience and the experiences of my fellow runners and walkers in the Fit-tastic program by searching “Fit-tastic.”

OK, a hamstring injury isn’t glamorous. It doesn’t have the cache of, say, an ACL injury. But it’s common among weekend warriors. Don’t warm up, go out too fast — ping! — there’s a debilitating snap in the back of your leg. A muscle snap that if you ignore can hobble you for weeks. First, a look at how to avoid irritating your hamstring in the first place.

Not long ago, we warmed up by stretching. Then we learned that stretching cold muscles wasn’t such a good idea. Now we’re advised to warm up slowly. For instance, at our Fit-tastic workouts we jog very slowly for a mile and a half to two miles before running hard. When I pulled my hamstring Monday I was sprinting for a flyball in a game of kickball; Had I taken 10 minutes to jog up the street and back beforehand I might have avoided the injury. But I didn’t, and I was stuck with a strained hamy, a moderate strain based on my interpretation of the rough rating system for evaluating hamstring pulls.

Immediately, I iced the injury and took ibuprofen. Good first steps, according to the online source I turned to, a Web site by Washington, D.C., physician Stephen M. Pribut, who specializes in podiatric sports medicine, biomechanics and foot surgery. Follow that up with “gentle compression” and rest. That jibed with my Fit-tastic running coach Tim Clark’s recommendation, which makes for a neat — not to mention tasty and nutritious — acronym: RICE. That is, Rest, Ice, Compression and Elevation.

Tim was especially high on compression: “Wear a wrap [and ACE bandage, for instance] overnight while sleeping,” he suggested. “I’ve found this works real well for muscle soreness.”

Obviously, it was the “R” aspect of the equation that caused me  consternation. No one likes to be benched. Coaches realize this, even doctors.

“Certainly walking is okay as long as the pain is not too severe and you’re not limping, which can cause other problems,” Tim said. As part of rehab, Dr. Pribut said it was OK to run two miles “at a glacial pace.” Hold off on the stretching for a week or so, then gradually reintroduce it. Take longer warmups — “it may take 1/2 hour or longer to do a proper warmup,” advises Dr. Pribut and after doing speedwork be sure to warm down, for one to two miles, before gently stretching.

Follow this advice and, depending upon the severity of the injury, it should take two to six weeks for the hamstring to mend.

Two to six weeks?

They need to revisit the hippocratic acronym, I thought. Instead of RICE, it should be RICEEP.

For Extreme Patience.

It was a good hour until dinner, the early evening was warm and sunny, the rush of kids coming home from school and parents from work over. A perfect opportunity for fun in the burbs.

“Who wants to go play in the street?” I yelled. As expected, I had three takers. We armed ourselves with a soccer ball, a junior-sized football and a basketball, which we noodled around with in the cul-de-sac before I spotted the orphaned white ball. It was your basic play ball, the kind stores keep in big wire cages and sell for a buck. It was bleached of color but held air and was otherwise in good shape. It had no heft, no weight, and no matter how hard you kicked it, didn’t matter if you were Rhys Lloyd, this flighty featherweight wasn’t going out of the cul-de-sac, let alone through a neighbor’s window.

“Let’s play kickball!”

Kickball. That staple of grade school recess that for most — but not all — of us vanished after 6th grade. Unlike its more successful cousins baseball and softball, kickball isn’t as demanding or demeaning for those of us of lesser motor skills. It also doesn’t hurt as much when the hand-eye coordination isn’t what it could be. Similar rules to softball and baseball, but much more laid back. Plus, everyone tends to get in on the action; there’s less of a “Put-Joey-in-right-field-because-no-one-ever-hits-out-there” element. Especially when you’re playing two-on-two, which is what we were playing in the cul-de-sac.

When you’re in the field with a full nine players, you’re only responsible for covering 1/9th of the playing surface. Ball goes to left field, you’re in right, not your problem; Stand, watch, wonder what mom packed in your Roy Rogers lunchbox. When you’re playing with just two players, you’re responsible for half the field — and if you’re a competitive 53-year-old feeling the need to prove yourself to two 14-year-olds and an 11-year-old, you assume responsibility for more.

It was the second inning and we were only down by two but, as I believe I mentioned yesterday, I could feel the game slipping away. They had the bases loaded; we needed this next out. My 14-year-old teammate rolled the pitch, our 11-year-old adversary delivered with a wounded duck down the first base line. “Mine!” I yelled, followed quickly by, “Aieeee!” That’s when my hamy — the semitendinosus, to be exact — went. I hobbled and short-hopped the fly ball; the 11-year-old was safe, the ghost runner scored, I was done. Or would be after we played another three innings and lost 7-6.

The strained muscle aside, this little orphaned ball gave us a great  workout before dinner on a school night. We ran, we kicked, we threw, we ducked. And had I had the foresight to warm up, to maybe jog slowly up and down the street for a few minutes before starting, I wouldn’t have spent the evening Googling “semitendinosus injury” and pestering my running coach for advice on how to quickly work through this injury.

Advice I will share tomorrow, because, again I have exhausted my self-imposed word limit for the day.

I rarely get injured, thanks more to the grace of Coach Upstairs than to dedicated preventative training on my part. Never was much for stretching when stretching before a workout was in, tend to jump right into an activity today rather than do a slow warm-up, as is the current prescription among trainer types. Fit-tastic and my coach Tim Clark have begun to introduce me to this novel concept — we start every workout with a very easy 2-mile run — but old habits die especially hard in older psyches.

Immediately after irritating my hamstring— well, not immediately; we finished the game, losing 7-6 — I did what any modern day recreational athlete does: I Googled it. Wait, I lie again: The first thing I did was get out my “Anatomy of  Exercise: A Trainer’s Inside Guide to Your Workout” to determine that indeed it was my left semitendinosus that had been aggrieved. I learned that it was a tendon, that it was one of three members of the hamstring family running the back of the leg, and that on a severity scale of three, my injury was a two — some pain, walk with a noticeable limp.

As is the case with any Google search, it took me a minute or two to find what appeared to be a reliable source. I went first to my go-to source on health matters, Mayoclinic.com, where I found a brief but helpful description indicating that in such strains, the muscle fiber is either stretched or torn, that rest and gentle stretching and strengthening exercises are typically good, that the injury can take two to six weeks — with proper attention — to heel. Good enough for a non-active type, but I needed to know more. Specifically, I needed specifics on how I could whittle that two to six weeks down to two to three days. I Googled on.

When I Google for medical information, I primarily look at two things. One, credentials. Is the source well-versed on the topic? Does she have a medical degree? Is he certified in sports medicine or training? A quick visit to the “About” section should answer this question. (If there is no “About” section, that should answer your question right there.) I also look at whether the site is trying to sell anything. The first site I visited had good, basic information on the muscles and their function. But when it came to dealing with injuries, there were only links to various videos, medicines and “therapy” programs guaranteed to work or your money back. I opted for the Web site of Dr. Stephen M. Pribut, a Washington, D.C., doctor specializing in podiatric sports medicine, biomechanics and foot surgery. His site has been up since 1995, his descriptions and advice were easy to understand.

Now, perhaps the smart thing would be to go directly to my doctor. And if my situation were more severe — if I had intense pain that wasn’t initially placated by ice and iboprofen, if I was walking like Chester on Gunsmoke, I would. But on similar matters in the past I’ve found that with the abundance of increasingly helpful information available on the internet — especially regarding minor sports injuries — it’s more efficient, economically and otherwise, to at least try the internet doctor route. (In part, this is because I’ve been told to act my age one too many times.) If I follow an online prescription and don’t see improvement in a week or two, I’ll make a brick-and-mortar appointment.

I’ve babbled enough for today. I’ll get to what my online doc — as well as my Fit-tastic running coach, Tim Clark — suggested tomorrow.Hamstrung by a hamstring

Ernie Parker talks strategy with coach Tim Clark.

I’ve shared why I signed up for the Fit-tastic running program: to relive the glory days of my running youth and hopefully do sub 8-minute miles in the Halloween weekend Monster Dash 5K. Now here’s why some of my peers in the advanced runner category are in the program.

Susan Jessup

For Susan, it was either run a half marathon or buy a little red sports car.  “I turned 50 last May,” Susan explains, “and decided that I wanted to do something that I had never done before – maybe this was my way of experiencing a mid life crisis.  That something new resulted in my decision to run a half marathon.  I had never run before so this was a big goal for me.”

She started running “a little on my own,” heard about Fit-tastic, signed up and ran the graduation Monster Dash last October in 35 minutes – “not great but a good start.”  She took the winter off, signed up for the spring session of Fit-tastic, ran the Race for the Cure in 32 minutes. Now in her third Fit-tastic session, Susan’s goal is to finally run that half marathon, the OBX in November.

“I get more than I ever imagined out of the program.  I have more energy, I am working towards my goal of running a half marathon and I have met some wonderful people that I would have never met otherwise.  One benefit that I never imagined is that my teenagers, ages 13 and 18, are proud of the fact that their mom runs.

“I don’t know if you have teenagers,” she adds. “If you do, you know how hard it is to find some way that they can be proud of you as a parent.”

Ernie Parker

“I am 66 years old and started my running career last August at the persistence of my daughter, Renee. First night I thought no way could I do this but I still enjoy trying.  This is my third session of Fit-tastic and I keep returning because you meet wonderful people that encourage you while sharing a common goal.  Running is a new adventure for me at my age. It makes me feel good about myself, it gives me much more energy, and I can eat foods that I have avoided for the last several years. Best thing that I have ever done for me!”

And since you can’t very well tell your mom to do something that you wouldn’t do, here’s daughter Renee, who is 41:

Renee Weaver

Renee, in her second Fit-tastic session, has been running for 9 years, but “not seriously until three years ago. The Race for the Cure got me started running — I have run the race every year except two.” She adds: “I started running to lose weight and get fit. I continue to run to challenge myself.”

Kelly Akers

Kelly is 35 and started running in 2008 when she and a friend visiting from Hawaii decided to run the Cooper River Bridge 10K in Charleston, S.C. “We had no expectations going into the race since I had not really run since high school and she was nursing a hip injury from the Marines. We thought we would walk or jog a little so it was no big deal. Well, we jogged all of it and finished in 1 hour 17 minutes. We were thrilled and felt super human that our feet could carry us 6.2 miles.”

Kelly vowed to run a race a month for the rest of the year, which included a half marathon that she did in 2 hours, 8 seconds. (She’s training for the Outer Banks Half Marathon in November with a goal of breaking 2 hours.)

Kelly has been in all three Fit-tastic sessions and says she’ll keep coming back “because I really enjoy meeting people trying to achieve similar goals and keeping healthy.” Healthwise, she’s lost 16 pounds since entering the program, “my body fat is a fabulous 24 percent,” and where she once suffered from hypertension she reports her blood pressure is now normal.

Shannan Brooks

Shannan, who is 30 now, started running in high school. “I was overweight and one day decided to do something about it.  So, I went outside and started jogging, every day trying to jog one more telephone pole, until I ran one mile without stopping.  That was a very accomplished moment for me. I then started running in track and training hard, sometimes morning and afternoon.  I lost alot of weight and became good at the sport.  Since then, I have always enjoyed running.”

But, as most of us come to realize, the demands of day-to-day life can derail the best of intentions. Homeschooling two kids and working part-time put a crimp in Shannan’s running plans. “Fitness always seems to be my last priority.” Fit-tastic has helped change that. “This program has helped me make it a bigger priority and get fit, so that I can enjoy running again.  Running is not fun if it is not done consistently.”

Scarlette Chapel

Forty-year-old Scarlette describes herself as a longtime walker/runner who’s stepped up the running over the last five years. She joined Fit-tastic to improve her running skills and, in the process, hopefully lessen her risk of injury. Her goal is to run a 10K in October (she also has a secret goal, which maybe we can convince her to reveal later). In fact, though, her real goal in joining the program is perhaps the best we’ve heard.

“I LIKE to run,” says Scarlette, “but I wanted to be an athlete who LOVED to run!!”

I’m in a much healthier coaching situation now. I listen because I know that no matter how painful six repeat 400-meter sprints up Washington Street bordering Fred Fletcher Park might be, or how goofy his “crazy feet” drill may seem, there’s a means to an end with what Tim Clark is putting us through.

Tim is 52, used to be a highly competitive runner. PR in the 5K: 15:01 (and he came in third, to give you an idea of the competitive circles he ran in), and 31:45 in the 10K (a race in which the winner was a good 3 minutes faster). You don’t get times like those by simply wracking up miles; You put some thought into how to make the best use of those miles. Which is where Tim comes in; He has us on a plan.

By “us,” I’m referring to the dozen or so in the Advanced Runners group in the Fit-tastic program run by The Athlete’s Foot in Raleigh. Fit-tastic started last fall with the goal of taking non-runners and training them to run a 5K in 12 weeks. There were about 80 runner-wannabes in that first session. This is the third Fit-tastic session, there are now 120 participants, and the program now caters to a variety of levels: from pure walkers, beginner walk-to-runners and intermediate walk-to-runners, to runners and advanced runners. I’m in the advanced runners group because I’ve been doing a six-mile trail run once a week for about a year. Plodding though that run may be, it puts me among the most experienced runners in the program. (And, again, none of us consider ourselves runners. Yet.)

“So, we’re going to do five repeats on this hill,” Tim told us at last night’s practice. (Thursdays, under Tim’s tutelage, are dedicated to hill sprints, Mondays to “strides.” On our own, we’re expected to do one 40-minute recovery run and on the weekend, a longer run, in my case the 6-mile trail run at Umstead.) We peered up Van Dyke Avenue: a steep initial climb of maybe 110 meters that disappeared over a rise.

“Where does it end?” someone asked.

“It ends up there … somewhere,” Tim replied. Hmm, run at 90 percent up a hill that we could tell was at least 110 meters, but be hiding another 400 meters beyond what could  be a false summit? How could you not follow a coach like that into battle? I found this somewhat amusing, certainly more than I would have in high school.

Three nights earlier Tim had led us on a two-mile warm-up run through a light drizzle. “Take your shoes and socks off,” he instructed as we came to a stop in a field of bent grass at St. Mary’s College. For the next 20 minutes or so we did what Tim called “strides” but which felt suspiciously like sprints on this lush carpet of wet grass. Running barefoot in grass was reward enough, the dew heightened our sense of feeling like kids playing tag in the backyard during an afternoon rain. We’d sprint — sorry, “stride” — for about 80 yards, recover for 20, stride another 80. All in wet, dewy grass. At one point I broke out laughing at the simple joy of it (something I don’t recall doing during my high school baseball days). Our strides were followed by a likewise barefoot session of “crazy feet,” in which we walked 10-yard stretches with our feet in a variety of odd positions.

“It helps build your calf and lower leg muscles,” Tim kept answering to the repeated question of, “Why are we doing this?” He added, “You might feel this one in the morning.” Boy howdy. My sore, knotted calf muscles threatened to rebel at the slightest provocation.

There’s no belittling, no berating. It doesn’t work on kids and it certainly doesn’t work with adults. There’s occasional cajoling and a white lie or two (“We don’t have that much farther to go …”). Mainly, there’s solid advice from someone who’s been there, someone who’s fine with the fact he isn’t there now (a bad meniscus tear four years ago and osteoarthritis have put Tim on a bike), someone who gets a true kick out of helping others try to reach their goals. Someone I wish my old baseball coach had met.

Tim is good. But is he good enough to get me to my goal of sub 8-minute miles at the Fit-tastic graduation, the 5K Monster Dash on Oct. 25? And don’t you like how I’ve shifted the responsibility of reaching my goal to the coach?

Coaches may change, but the coached?

I ran back in my 20s, back when my body was more tolerant of the physical toll of running 25 to 35 miles a week. I ran 10Ks (pr of 40:04) and a smattering of 5Ks (20:02 pr). Toward the end of my 29th year my knees and back had had enough. Do something else, my doctor advised. I drifted to the more joint-friendly swimming and cycling, my staples for the next 22 years.

Last fall, I began trail running once a week at Umstead. I can’t recall what prompted me to start — curiosity over how my body would react, perhaps. It went well and I gradually increased my distance. Currently, I run six miles at a pace of just over 10 minutes per mile. Well off the 6:30 pace of my peak years, but acceptable to someone simply glad to be running again.

I’ve been able to resume running because, curiously, running on uneven, bumpy, rooty, rocky trail is easier on the body. Running on pavement, your foot strikes the consistent surface roughly the same way every time. (By my calculations, for my stride that’s roughly 4,400 times per foot on a typical five-mile training run. Which, again by my crude calculations, would be more than 1.1 million strikes per foot a year running 25 miles a week.)

Trail running, on the other hand, is the snowflake of the sport: No two foot strikes are alike. You’re constantly dodging stuff, which affects your stride and thus where and how your foot lands. I’ve been trail running once a week for a year now, with few physical repercussions. I’m happy to be running again. But of course, I want more.

Last year, as the health and fitness writer for The News & Observer, I followed a group of runners through the Fit-Tastic running program offered by The Athlete’s Foot. The program’s goal: Take folks who don’t know a waffle trainer from a Waffle House and, in 12 weeks, transform them into 5K runners. I followed a mom trying to get back into shape after her first child, a young married couple eager to not repeat the mistakes of their sedentary parents, and a family who wanted to get into better shape together. Their final for the program was a Halloween 5K, the Monster Dash. It was during that race that my urge to run was rekindled. Or, more precisely, my urge to run in a race. For while I experienced the euphoric runner’s high any number of times, the real high was the races: the pounding music, the hundreds of competitors (or thousands, in the case of the Bolder Boulder where I was one of 16,000), the pushing to pass just one more person, the free T-shirt. If I could do it one more time, I thought.

Of course, doing a 5K this time around would mean doing it in a lot more than 20 minutes. To approach that time would require more road-pounding training than my body can handle. But for someone whose goal was to constantly finish in the top 10 percent, it doesn’t mean run-walking, either. I need to run the race and I need to run it in a respectable, to me, time. Arbitrarily, I’ve decided that breaking 24 minutes, or sub 8 minute miles, is a worthy goal.

I’m doing the Fit-Tastic program myself this year. Thursday night will be my first training session. Already, coach Tim Clark has sent me some training guidelines, which we’ll discuss on Thursday. Part of the allure of the program is access to experienced running coaches such as Clark, who listen to your goals then devise a training strategy to help get you there.

Over the next nine weeks I’ll report periodically on the program. I’ll update my progress, but I’ll also talk about the other folks in the program, about why they’re here, about what motivated them to run, about what they hope to accomplish and about how they’re progressing. And I’ll take you along on our final exam, the Monster Dash on Oct. 25.

See you back here after Thursday evening’s run.

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Interested?

Officially, the Fit-tastic training program launched with a kick-off meeting Aug. 6, but TAF’s Mike Zimmerman says you can still register. “Reality is,” says Zimmerman, “if they are not in decent shape, they may have a hard time catching/keeping up.” You be the judge. You can find out more about the program here, you can register here. Fee is $50. And yes, among other things that includes a T-shirt.Back