Born to Run?

While PWL and I were away, we bought this book and read it together. It is an amazing book, and I would recommend it to anyone who currently runs, has run in the past and has been meaning to start again, or is thinking really hard about maybe someday possibly starting to run. I was going to write my own synopsis of it here, but when I realized how many great summaries of his book are out there, and how mine would be a very pathetic review at best, I figured I could just point you in the right direction. If you want to read more about the book, you can go to his website.

Let me also say that even with all the inspiration crammed into a few hundred pages of text, I was not overly enthusiastic about taking up running again. (I need to insert here that since before Christmas, I have taken a very light-hearted approach to exercise in general, and have blamed my lack of running on the bad roads, weather, dark sky, potential for bad weather, etc., and running has been a non-priority). But coming home from our trip, and realizing that for 6 days I ate only foods with high-fat content and way too many calories, I decided that this was it. This was my time to really get going again and start running.

It's now two weeks since we read the book. I have run a total of 2 times. Once with PWL, which was a mistake in itself, since I'm convinced he actually was born to run, and he left me in the dust, and once today. It is, after all, a Monday, so I figured it was a good day to embrace the inevitable and start running again before it became near impossible to motivate myself. The sun was shining (no weather to blame), it was 10am (no dark sky to blame), the snow has all melted from the roads...basically, ideal conditions for a run. I got my gear on, put Tony P. in the jogger, and headed out. I figured I would go for 1/2 hour, just to see if I could still do it. I was excited, I was motivated, and I was totally oblivious to the fact that it only took me 10 minutes to run what usually takes me (when I'm actually running all the time) at least 12-13 minutes. The whole way to the turn around I was feeling so good, I was actually smiling (like it suggests in the book). Tony P. was pointing out all the ducks that are returning to our town, and we were having a lovely bonding moment. Then we turned around, and this was the run back.

Those of you who know where I live will see the humor in the landscape, but the posture was the same. Poor Tony P. was crying the whole way home, and at one point I actually turned the stroller around backwards and tried to pull it with the safety strap. Unfortunately, our jogger doesn't steer, so he kept going off the path and I had to turn him back around, but only after a lady in a truck pulled over to see if we wanted a ride home. A ride home? Preposterous! I was out for a RUN, and I was not quitting until I had done my full 30 minutes. After she left, I really wished I hadn't declined her offer and several times after that when a truck would drive by I would try to look equally as desperate, just in case they wanted to take pity on us. Nobody else stopped. I am now sporting some tiny little scabs on my legs where the sand pellets were blasting into me at 90 km/hr, and it took me 10 minutes to brush the dirt off my teeth. I think the guy who wrote the book must live in a place where wind does not exist.