Saturday, June 7, 2014

10 Idle Thoughts About Running, Part 1



 1. Track coach & Physiologist Dr. Jason Karp asserts that “marathons change lives”. I'm sure there's some truth to that. I'll say that road racing has changed my perspective.

2.  I never cared about how crowned a road was until I started running on them,and my left glutes started giving me a hard time.

3.  Why do cracks appear longitudinally at the top of a road's crown, anyway?


4. Before I started consistently running, I'd grumble about bus routes being interrupted by the Chicago Marathon. Now, I'm running in my first Chicago Marathon, and hey people-it's a temporary disruption! You'll have your streets back in the late afternoon.

5. Do marathons change lives?  I don't know, but running the Madison Marathon made me slightly condescending.  "Why yes, I'll run your flat course, but Darling, we all know real marathons are run over hills."

6. I downloaded the 2013 course.  There are some long straight stretches. "Straighter than a preacher/ longer than a memory" as Steve Earle sang in "Nowhere Road.  After running over 22 miles, that last long stretch up Michigan Ave. looks like a "nowhere road".

7. I felt the same way about John Nolen drive during the Madison Marathon.  I'll spare you the rant.

8. Several weeks ago, when I went to pick up my bib for the Madison Half Marathon at the Monona Terrace convention center, I paused near John Nolen Drive.  I was about to unleash a torrent of obscenities at that drive.  ("Mommy, why is that man yelling at nothing?  Dear, he ran a marathon here back in November, some people just don't know how to let bygones be bygones.  You'll understand as you get older.")

9. I restrained myself and stayed quiet.  However, at the bib pickup & expo, I talked about it with a volunteer who had run the full Marathon.  He observed that it's one thing to see where you finish, which is the State Capitol building, and then another thing to know that you have to run another three miles to get to it.

10. I was going to spare you a rant.  Sorry.  I lied.  Marathons change lives. ;-)

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