Running from danger

I have daydreamed at times someone trying to mug me for my wallet or something like that... and I take off running and they run after me... and I just settle in and start laughing to myself. Hope you can run marathon buddy I'd sniker to myself... waiting for the moment they'd stop to puke their guts out about mile 2.

I found a nike add that is a similar theme.It is kind of creepy and didn't air in US I think

Nike add... running from danger

I may have the marathon bug again

I thought I was over it. I thought... enough is enough. I was wrong.

You triumph over the adversity, that is what the marathon is all about, and therefore you know that there isn't anything in life the you can not triump over --- Kathrine Switzer

Another near miss

I have lost track of how many times I have almost been hit while running. Most of the time it is at an intersection where cars are turning. A few of the intersections I have to cross of turning lights that for some bizarre reason turn green at the same time the cross light comes on. Cars see the green light and they will go regardless of whether there happens to be a human body in the way… even if they are legally crossing during the cross light. Now… I do blame them… but ever more so… who the heck programmed the cross light and the turn light to come on at the SAME time? What were they thinking? Seriously… the only way they could put pedestrians in more danger is to have them cross when the perpendicular traffic had a green light. In all seriousness… I could cross more safely just ignoring the light and crossing when it was safe!

And then there was Saturday. My house is on a dead end cul-de-sac next to a school… and many of my runs start out across the school yard to a street in front of the school. On Saturday the school was having a book faire, and when coming back from my run I cut through the parking lot. As I am running through the lot... in a bright yellow light running jacket… a truck pulls by me along side of me and proceeds to take a left turn right at me. I dodge around them… but for the life of me I don’t understand how someone can be that dumb. I reasoned it was some passive aggressive thing and they were only trying to make me think they were going to hit me… because I can’t fathom how they wouldn’t have seen me… unless they are giving blind people licenses these days. I was going to turn around and have a conversation with the driver… but I was taking the kids to the book faire later... =)

Time to go run... it is 65 degrees out!

Picking flowers revisited

There is a quote I read somewhere… from Joan Benoit Samuelson about when she started running:

“When I first started running, I was so embarrassed I'd walk when cars passed me. I'd pretend I was looking at the flowers!"

http://agoodgroup.com/running/quotes.html

When I first read that… I assumed she was embarrassed because she was slow. I know the feeling… there are times when I have been out running and I wished I could pretend I was doing something else because I am so slow.

Of course, Joan Benoit Samuelson went on to win the first women’s Olympic Marathon. To me, there was some comfort to thinking that even someone as great of a runner as she… was once slow. Well… now I am not so sure. Now I read in this forum… that she may have been embarrassed alright, but not because she was slow, but because she was a women.

http://forums.usms.org/archive/index.php/t-3151.html

That seems crazy from today’s perspective… so crazy that I didn’t even consider it when I read that quote. It seems there are more women runners than men now… so it is hard to imagine a time when they didn’t rule the roads.

To me… it just adds to her legend in my mind. She wasn't following the crowd or anyones footsteps, she was blazing a new trail.

There is no road to nowhere

Someone I work with told me that they didn’t like running last week. They explained that it was torture and excruciatingly boring. It took me a few seconds to understand that they were talking about running on a *treadmill*. I explained that running outside was a completely different experience.

It got me thinking about how many people never start running outside because the experience on the dreadmill just sucked the life out of them. If they only knew how different running outside is. Running is not torture. Sure… there is some discomfort… sometimes… maybe for a few weeks when you start, or on a really long run, but for the most part it is pleasant and time flies. The hum that vibrates through your body after you stop running is heavenly... every muscle thanking you for playing with them like a childhood toy.

And yes… there is something very basic and simple about running that even kids understand. My son told me last week that he likes running… and when he meets someone new at school they measure each other up by a sprint across the school yard. That funny thing is… I remember just that… we moved and on my first day at my new school… first recess a classmate comes up and asks… ‘Hi my name is David… do you want to race?’ And off we went like wild horses.

Running is that basic and simple. It doesn’t take a PhD to put one foot in front of the other. Yes we may not need to run for transportation anymore… but a runners heart looks at the hill way over yonder and thinks… ‘I could run there.’

I don’t have any particular running goals right now. That may change tomorrow… I may be heading somewhere I just don’t understand yet. There is a quote from the movie Made in Heaven that goes something like, ‘if you don’t know where you are going, it don’t matter what road you take.’ I’m on that road right now.