Resultsonline

...the results you want

Welcome to my Web site.

Hi, I’m Gary Baker.

I spent over thirty years in the retail shoe business and began my sales career as a student fitting footwear part-time. Eventually I had my own chain of nine stores.

My running career also began rather modestly. I played touch football with a group of guys for 28 years. In order to keep up with the young jets who came into our game I started running two miles a day, three times a week. Two years of health running eventually lured me into running a marathon. Everything I learned about running in the early years was done the hard way, through trial and error.  

For example, my average weekly mileage before my first race, a marathon, was 23 miles a week. My first 20 mile training run was six days before my first marathon. At the marathon's 25 mile mark, achieved in just under 3 hours, the marshals pulled me off the course. I was a basket case suffering from hypoglycemia. Six marathons later I ran my first 10K.

As you can see, I needed race and training direction. In 1980 I joined the Etobicoke Husky/Striders. It is a great running club. Coaches Wally Patching and Julius Paladino carefully shaped my training and racing under the watchful supervision of head coach Hugh Cameron. I was competitive in every distance from  800M to the marathon. My best times, at 45 years old, were 2:05 for 800M/4:15 for 1500/ 16:03 for 5K/ 32:48 for 10K/ 67:50 for 20K and 2:31:01 for the marathon.

A few years ago a ski accident took me out of running for two years. It was so serious that I had to put  competitive racing on hold. Now that I am back in good health, I once more enjoy running, cycling and skiing. (It keeps me in reasonable shape in case the urge to compete becomes overwhelming.) One of my favorite "No Fear" T-shirts reads,"The Older I Get, The Better I Was."

My Web site has a two-fold purpose. Most importantly, it's designed to be a source of  running information for not only elite runners but also, "back of the packers". Secondly, designing, researching and writing Resultsonline helps keep me abreast of the sport that still gives me so much pleasure.

So come in and take a look around. We have compiled a lot of useful running information and will strive to keep our site as updated and interesting as possible.

Sincerely,

Gary Baker