Reliving the Past

We have "memory" boxes stored in the basement of our home. Our three adult daughters, Jan and I each have a tote box that are about 16" high and wide and 36" long. They are filled with a variety of items; some photographs, certificates, medals, newspaper clippings, drawings, etc. The boxes are neat to look through once in awhile to remember what accomplishments our kids had or just relive a moment in time.

A few days ago I was lifting weights in the basement, headphones on, mp3 player cranked, singing along (Jan wasn't home, I was safe singing), and decided to look through my own memory box. I wasn't really looking for anything particular, it had been a long time since I had been in it and didn't remember what was there.

I found a Kodak slide photograph of me in my graduation gown standing in front of our home. It's the only known photograph of me from that time (1974). But what do I do with it? And why a slide photograph and not a regular one? I also found a Polaroid photograph of me from my first road race.

This was 1980, before the Kodak 8 mile race in Greece. I had been running for maybe 3 months and was 23 years old. Where did I ever get those white shorts from? My running shoes were Nike Internationalist, quite an improvement over the high top basketball sneakers I began running in. I didn't know anything about hydration or pacing. And that hair, man I wish I had that hair back again, though I never really liked curls. I'm not sure what kind of finishing time I expected, but ran just over 62 minutes. Considering that was my longest run ever it was probably a decent time.

I've never stopped running, unless injured. Weird, I only ran in high school or college to get in shape for other sports and never more than two miles. That distance was seldom run, maybe a few times before football practice began, and ridiculously long. Sprints, maybe up to 880 yards was all I really knew. Now 38 years later and I'm still going. 
Feel free to share an early running memory of your own.