Since 1987, I have been know as Andy by most. Especially by the younger crowd. First it was for my alternative record store and then it was for my running website by the same name. The name came from my college radio days, my handle was Andy Noise. Andy was short for Anderson and well I played what many considered Noise.Before Andy Noise, I was known as Paul Anderson, the runner by many. I started running daily way back in 1979, when I gave up team sports to run track in my sophomore year. I was riding the pine and in mid-season I quit the baseball team and went out for track. At the last meet of the year (league meet at BC stadium) I broke 5 minutes for the mile (yes we ran yards and miles back then) and I was hooked for life.
Right from the start, I was interested in road racing and started running the local races. I also started reading everything I could find about running. I wanted to know the history and how to get faster (Sure wish google was around back then). In the fall of my junior year, I ran cross country for Highland for the very first time. I had some success and got my 3 mile time into the low 17s but I found out that I was really suited for much longer races.
So that winter, I continued my running education and decided to run the BTC marathon in February of my junior year. I did not have a coach but there were quite a few older athletes in town who were running sub three hour marathons and I asked as many questions as they were willing to answer.
I put in a lot of miles but I definitely did not do long enough runs. But at 16 I was on the starting line of my first marathon and I was ready. The early miles felt easy and the first lap of the race with the half marathoners was real easy. I was cruising along at 6 minute or so pace and thought this is easy.
But then the halfers went on to finish and it got lonely on foggy second lap of the course. I was good to go but the pan flat course around the streets near CSUB were starting to take their toll on my legs. I had just learned another marathoning lesson.
One, do not go out with the halfers and two, do not run a flat course. A flat course is fast but you use the same muscles in the same way for hours. A few hills makes things a lot easier.
At twenty miles or both these lessons came to fruition. I hit the wall, my 6 minute pace became 10 minute pace. I went through 20 miles in a little over 2 hours but the next 6 miles would take an hour. As I struggled to the finishline, my dream of breaking three hours was fading fast. In the end I ran 3:01 and was crushed. To break three hours one has to run 6:52 pace for 26.2 miles and I did not.
My senior year I got faster and was under 16 minutes for the 5k consistently. I even ran 15:10 on my home 3 mile course at Highland and run a 34 minute 10k too. So I expected big things at the BTC Marathon in February of 1981 but I did a repeat of the previous year and died even worse this time and ran 3:03.
Then during track season, I had a minor bike accident, whose impact would be felt for years. I hurt my hip and to this day it has never felt right and at times hurts a lot. This injury did not get in the way of my running for the most part. It just made it uncomfortable at times when I was not running more then when I was running.
What did bother it was running on the track so my senior year, I curtailed my track competition and started to focus on road racing even more. As a graduation present to myself, I went to the Lompoc marathon and finally got my sub three. I ran a smarter race and ended up running 2:55.
Then I went of to UC San Diego and ran cross country there for two years before pursuing triathlons. I ran on the varsity squad both years and after my sophomore season I ran my fastest marathon, at the San Diego race where I ran 2:50 and qualified for Boston.
too be continued ...
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