24 thousand 62

on foot

I’ve run 24,062 miles since 7/6/2006. That’s when I started tracking every run I do on RunningAhead.com (A fabulous free site for tracking. I pay, but you don’t have to.) If Wikipedia is right, I have about 839 miles to run until I’ve traveled the circumference of the Earth at the equator. That’s a lot of time on the feet. How many you ask? 4,048 hours. Or about 169 days or almost half a year. None of that is a goal or anything. It’s just incidental and fun to think about.

Here’s a pretty graph breaking it all down by year. Yellow is the number of runs and is using the scale on the right. Green is miles and uses the scale on the left. Yeah, I know it’s backwards. I’m too lazy to fix it. Well actually, when I tried to fix it, everything switched and it was backwards the other way. Aghh!

31 of my runs since 2006 have been over 20 miles. 5 of those were 50km races - or about 31 miles. Yup. That’s a lot of running.

This year I basically didn’t run for the month of September. My back issues came to the forefront and really hobbled me. It was rough because… I run. It’s part of what I do. Usually 3-4 times per week.

It looks like going forward I am going to have to listen to my back. If I want to keep running for years to come I will have to be careful and no matter how good I feel, no matter how fabulous my fitness level, no matter the peer pressure of my fabulous running buddies, I’ve got to keep it far shorter. Like half. It’s going to be rough. It’s so easy to keep going when the trail is soft, the temperature is perfect and there’s an unknown trail that peels off up a hill. I want to go there. I want to see where that leads. “NO!” Stick to the plan. 10 miles max. Even that might be too much. I have to be careful.

What’s with this running thing?

Well… I’ve run since I joined Cross Country as a sophomore in high school. TK talked me into it. He had done it and persuaded me that it was fun. He was right. It was fun. I’ve never been that fast. I was at the back of the pack on our boys Cross Country team, but I liked it. I ran off and on on my own through college and during my first job in Seattle. Working in Seattle and trying to run in the winter is not easy. It’s dark. It’s wet. It’s cold. I didn’t run much in the winter.

The weather in Monterey is perfect for running. Never too hot. Never too cold. I basically don’t have special clothes for running in the winter. Plus, there are lots of trails around here. It’s heavenly.

When you run a lot you just get so you can keep going. It’s no big deal. Rarely will you end up with sore legs. I like to look around. Think about things. If I feel like walking, I walk a bit. It’s fine. Lately my Saturday morning running group has taken to getting pastries and espresso in the middle of long runs. That’s decadence.

As much as I've talked about my loneliness in this forum, I do like my alone time. It’s good for me. Most of my runs are alone and I like it that way. I decompress. Many of the posts here on this substack were largely composed while running. I think about them, organize them in my head and then when I sit down it all just flows out in one big stream of words. It’s lovely.

If I’m faced with a difficult dilemma at work/school, a run is a perfect way for me to work it out. Often I will have a knee jerk reaction stuck in my head to a situation and I have to hold myself back. If something or someone made me mad I will want to just GO OFF on them and give them the what for. Wait. Stop. Think. During a run my feeling will usually mellow and become more kind hearted, considerate and empathetic. I usually find a new, gentler path that is actually better for everyone involved. Ahh, pleasant sigh. That’s right… it’s like prayer or meditation or counseling or chatting with a friend. Yes, I have a lot of conversations with myself in my head. A LOT!

But at the same time, running is where I communicate with most of my good friends. I teach and work with people and get along with folks, but I’m not really that social. I tend to sit and observe. Running is a place where I can be with someone for an hour or two and we can talk and have long periods of silence and talk a little more. The silent periods aren’t awkward. We can just enjoy the experience together. Other times a whole run might be filled with lively discussion. You never know. I just know that I like mixing activity with being social. Doing something where the only goal is being social is harder for me.

What am I running from? Uhh… wrong question. I’m not chasing anything either. I’m just running. It’s fun.