Life Without Running

Motivation can come from unexpected places especially when we sometimes need it most. As I approached time to make plans for another trip to finally try to get the last 4 of 48 states raced it seemed that it was easier to find reasons that I couldn’t make it happen. I was still making piecemeal plans but struggled trying to put together a itinerary that I might actually be able to make work. The push I needed came from a quote by George Sheehan, the “Running Cardiologist” that was in a book I recently picked up at a used bookstore. The book was, Soul, Sweat & Survival on the Pacific Crest Trail , by Bob Holtel written in 1994. The quote is as follows: “The weakest among us can become some kind of athlete, but only the strongest can survive as spectators. Only the hardiest can withstand the perils of inertia, inactivity and immobility…. From the moment you become a spectator, everything is downhill. It’s a life that ends before the cheering and the shouting die.” That quote really h...

I saw this book at a Dollar Tree when I stopped to pick up dog poop bags and OJ two of the things I still go there for. I also always stop at their book “section” to see what there might be. Surprisingly I have discovered authors that I might not have found otherwise. The color of this book made it standout and then the two parts of the title spoke to me. If you’ve read past blogs that I have written you know of my interest in both train travel and long distance travel as a metaphor for life so I figured I couldn’t go wrong for $1.25. And this book is where I found the idea of Dromomania a word I had never seen before.  DROMOMANIA - An uncontrollable impulse or desire to wander or travel. I was surprised when I googled it and found an article where it was actually described as “Travel Addiction”. As if I need to be diagnosed with another addiction! The reality though is it’s easy to see that there really can be such a thing. While not even realizing it when I started my quest for ...

I didn’t set out on my 60th birthday intending to set goals with any specific # of races to run. It’s really something that has evolved over time. I ran 60 minutes at Red Rocks Park on my 60th birthday in Colorado Springs not knowing that was the first step to 350. After 350, who knows? The first race I ran after turning 60 was the America Discovery Trail half marathon. I had worked my way up to running 12 miles on the treadmill at work so figured I could do a half. Sometime after that race I was running at Palmer Park and looking at Pikes Peak and somehow convinced myself that I was going to train on trails and try to run the Ascent in 2009. I had run it for the first and last time in 1986 the year after I moved toColorado Springs. I barely made the cutoff for the Ascent and you can see from the picture how exhausted I was at the top but that didn’t discourage me from continuing to race. At some point after that race I found a website that allowed you to signup and track 25 half mara...