I happened to head out the door tonight for another easy little 3 miler (like all of them have been) and I run into my neighbor, the triathlete, on the sidewalk as he's wrapping up his bike commute home. We've been talking for a year about going for a run or a bike ride for a long time, since snowmaggedon I believe. Unfortunatly, we keep having conflicting schedules, Dave and I do. He often goes to his Virginia farm house on the weekends and neither of us have been able to run for a while due to one injury or another. But the mircle of random timing was on our side this time. So off we went and I soon remembered one of the simple joys of this joyfully simple activity. We hit a natural but easy stride, he was still running like an artificial runner, heal striking down the trail. I was feeling very comfortable as I settled into my more natural and stride. I've come to realize the more I talked about it that the running stride should be like any athletic stance found in every sport around the world. Up on the balls of your feet a little bit, your weight slightly forward, your gaze about 10 feet ahead. Our conversation hit a natural but easy stride as well, as we chatted about our life's loves... specifically our bikes and our wives and kids. Dave told me he wanted a new bike but bought his wife one instead. I told him that I want a new bike as well but really, I can squeeze another season or two out of Millie (yes I name my bikes, both of them).
I have only told three people in person about my true long term goal of doing the JFK50, until I started this blog that is. I told my friend Ben just a few short hours before he accidentially died, I told my wife and I told Dave on our run this evening as the sun was setting and that's it. I may be a bit daft but at least I can state my reasons for doing these crazy endurence events. There was a time in my life that I felt like Ironman was something I needed to do. It was because it is the toughest one day endurence event on the planet, or at least among the toughest. I did two of them and may do another, maybe not, who knows. But I now I feel like I need to do an Ultra, and from what I hear, the JFK 50 is the one to do. I'd love to do it in barefoot shoes as a sort of final exam in this big test I am putting myself thru. Ben was the first person I told about the barfoot ultra who responded with a smile. "Respect to you sir! I like the big dreamers attitude and the massive set of beans on ya" is what his smile said, what his eyes said. So partially in honor of Ben I will do a natural running ultra, naturally. It was him who inspired me to blog, him and Jordan and Fritz and Monica and hundreds of other friends and aquantinces. Maybe I'll bring a picture of him with me on my race day.
My body felt really good tonight. We hit an "easy 10 minute pace" which was easily more like an 8:30 pace. It was the most relaxed I had been lately. The stride is getting a lot more comfortable, I didn't really think about it to much tonight, just sort of checked back in as the conversastion ebbed and flowed. I even forgot to start my watch until about 1/4 to 1/2 mile into it.
Dave and I agreed to do this again soon but no hard plans were made, we talked about racing some local 5-10k's and maybe some trail races together in a few months. If you run please join me, I'll be doing the Backyard Burn trail races this spring, I'll do the 5 mile series instead of the 10, I hope I'm still fast enough to bring home some Pub glass age group awards, my wife hopes the pub glasses "fall off the shelf." Either way check it out and come out and see me. http://www.ex2adventures.com/
3 miles. :28 to :30 -ish
Ah, the joys of running!!
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