Minus a pair of gloves

Runners not only battle the force of nature, but we also have to battle the force of our nature. Specifically biologically. Runs of longer than 1 hour… especially after making sure we have a good load of fluids… can be a recipe for a restroom stop. Except… there are not many restrooms on the best running spots.

No… I am not a stranger to the woods. Eight years in the Army and there were many weeks when I never had the luxury of a toilet. The one time some genius decided to bring one of those fold up toilet seats with us on a field exercise in Alaska (it wasn’t my idea by the way) and the thing collapsed on me after doing my business in 30 below temp.

Now… if that sounds like a mess… you are right… it was. But add to that that it is 30 below and I only have a precious few minutes with my fingers outside gloves before I lost the ability to close my fingers. Sure enough… before I was properly clean… I couldn’t clench, but I pretty much exhausted anything I could clean myself with at that point. All that was left was some clean white snow… and yes… I did use some hastily constructed snowballs as the equivalent of toilet paper.

As I said… I am no stranger to the woods.

I will admit that I have used the woods a few times during my runs (not *when* I had the runs thankfully). Leaves work much better than snowballs for toilet paper in a pinch. Monday on my run in the hills at the coast… when it became clear I would have to turn back or find a spot in the woods… I chose the woods. Unfortunately… the leaves were all frozen and using something frozen for toilet paper… is not something I need to experience twice in a lifetime.

So my running gloves were sacrificed and I ran home with cold hands. And that is all I have to say about that.

A crystal clear run

During one of my runs on the weekend on in the hills at the beach, I noticed a cool rock in the road. It was off on a spur where they are just put new rock down for a logging road. The rocks were not small… this wasn’t a Sunday drive for a sedan type road… but something the logging equipment could use to get in and out.

The rock was clear and had small crystals in it. I spend a lot of time picking up rocks when we are on the beach… so we already have a collection of interesting ones. These were much larger though. Looking around through the new road I found the best ones I could carry and ran the rest of the way home with them.

They appear to be quartz… very common, but the clear ones are cool. The next day the family hiked back up and we all collected the best ones we could find. I will try to snap some pictures when I get a chance.

Too many shoes

I have never been a shoe guy... but it just occurred to me… I have too many shoes. Just a few pairs is all I used to have. But now that I am running… I have found myself with a mountain of shoes. Perfectly natural for a runner I suppose… we go through a lot of shoes… but now I have 4 pairs of active shoes that I am running in.

I have my road shoes at home… and then an identical pair for road running at the beach. Then at the beach I also have a pair of shoes I run on the beach with… and a pair of trail running shoes for the hills. But those are just for running.
Then I have two pairs of work shows (of course) a pair of old running shoes I use on walks to the beach… a pair of old running shoes I mow the lawn in… I have soccer and softball cleats, I have a pair of indoor basketball shoes, and a pair of outdoor ones. I also have a pair of court shoes (for like racquetball). Then I have a couple of pairs of dress shoes… snow boots and I haven’t even started on the shoes I just wear around on a typical day!

How did this happen? Whatever happened to the days when a pair of converse was all you needed?

Beach run

Not a bad backdrop for a run aye? Yeah... running on the sand is a bit harder than the pavement... but you can't beat the view.



Just a short five miler down the beach today. Running on the sand isn't too bad if you find the right line where the sand is hard. Too wet and it is mushy... to dry and it is very hard to run in... but there is a line that is nice.

It is nice to be able to choose from the beach or the hills for my weekend runs. Really there is nowhere I could run that the scenary wouldn't be amazing. I'm supposed to run 12 miles tomorrow but I may bump it Monday because I am golfing 18 holes.

Thoughts on the Mtn God

There was a nice article in Runner’s World this week called ‘Twilight of the Mountain God’ about Rick Trujillo. I highly recommend you read it. Trujillo is an amazingly gifted runner and offers insight into trail running that I doubt anyone will ever match. Oh heck… I guess it is mountain running… not trail running… since what I consider a trail is probably an 8 lane freeway to him.

While I really enjoyed the article, especially since I am doing some trail running now… and I admire Trujillo and his accomplishments… the one part that rubs me the wrong way is the assertion once again that ‘if you don’t run my way… you run the wrong way.’ I saw it before in Gabriel Sherman’s article ‘Running With Slowpokes: How Sluggish newbies ruined the marathon’.

I just don’t buy that someone can define what makes and appropriate running experience and don’t believe anyone should poo-poo how someone else runs. There is a big contrast between Sherman’s ‘you have to run fast or it doesn’t count’ attitude and Trujillo’s ‘you have to run up the mountain because it is there and if you do it for any other reason you are wrong attitude’ is interesting, but they both take a jab at anyone who does it different. I guess runners in Kansas are screwed because they don’t have any mountains to run up. =)

BTW… my apologies for mentioning Trujillo and Sherman in the same post… they are alike only in the sense that they have particular views in defining what a real runner is, and not in ability. I would like to see Sherman try to follow Trujillo up a mountain… It just might make him realize how silly it is to try to define what Marathon’s are about.

While I know we have athletic competitions to see who is the best or fastest, to truly know the greatest achievement you have to know who did the most with what they were born to work with. You can’t find that in a time or medal or on a mountain and even then… I am not sure how relevant it is. Speed is only one aspect.

Trujillo more than anyone I have read about… seems to get that. It’s not about medals, or money or time. He does talk about *his* time and records in the article… but it is more from the point of how he is grading himself… not about how someone else should measure in comparison.

Back to marathon's... are they just races? No... I don't think so... I think they are experiences that just happen to contain a race... and internally each individual defines the power of that experience.