2022.11.16 - The Beauty of an Ugly Run
A non-runner, looking out the window on a 35 degree, grey, so called, dreary November morning, may not see it as an inspirational setting to lure them outside. To us runners who know that the temp is ideal for a crisp, lively run, don’t think twice and head out knowing that just out the door, the magic happens! Once the blood is flowing, we will start to notice the simple beauty of the world that surrounds us, like the sharp edges on gunmetal clouds, the repeating pattern of last night’s flurries frosting the final leave of fall along the roads edge, little things that have us living in the moment, which is the true gift of the run.
Don’t miss the magic of today,
Randy Step, an admitted obsessed runner who also obsesses about the sounds and smells of the run! Enjoy every full color minute of it!
his midweek relates to the line, finish your dinner, there are starving children in Africa! So, you are healthy and have no excuse not to get out for a run today while there are injured runners who would give anything to be in your shoes! Not that you eating will help those kids or that your run will cheer up someone that’s be sidelined but the point is, we who are fortunate should never take it for granted. Heathy days are a gift, and as the late great Steve Prefontaine said, “To give anything less than your best is to sacrifice the gift.” We are only dancin’ on this earth for a short while so …
I’ve been in Florida since the day Hurricane Ian hit our second home here, I’ve never spent time on the front lines of a disaster and it’s harder than I could have imagined. I am dirty, tired but safe. The marathon mentality and fitness level from being a runner has got me through and kept me going. It’s a high tech modern world that makes it easy to forget that you might be in a situation that your fitness level can save your life or lives of others. Let’s get our butts out the door so we can be the ones to help, perhaps not being the one needing help. That said, I feel for those who have only one home and have lost everything. The incredible outpouring of support down here is humbling. We live in a great country with great people. Every day I’ve had people volunteering to save our home. They come door to door asking if we need help. They deliver hot lunches, water and lift spirits, and make me smile and cry. 
For those of us running long in Detroit, Grand Rapids, Chicago or wherever, this is no time to second think our training. It’s rare that training goes as planned. We can’t change it now so it’s time to accept that whatever kind of miles we got in, we need to come up with a realistic plan of how to run our race, not, on what we hoped. I’ve said it before, if you go in undertrained you have nothing to lose, those who are well trained are at risk of blowing all the work they have done! Ha. That said, those who did the work, I’m proud of you already. Run smart, follow your plan and enjoy your race! The rest of us will do the work on race day, not ideal but it will be an adventure, perhaps a painful and long adventure but we will cross the same finish line and will learn a bit about ourselves. Good stuff. Run smart and laugh at yourself when sh##t hits the fan and remember, this is what we do for fun!
Thanks to you, RF Events has survived as a company and made it out of the Covid darkness and into the light! It struck me this past weekend at Run Woodstock when I found myself, finally, not worrying about the future but just doing what I love, that is, putting on incredible events with our incredible crew for our faithful participants. Living life in full color again, finally not loosing sleep wondering how we would get back to this point but loosing sleep pulling off a labor of love. To be back fully aware of and sharing the emotional wonder of the finish line where goals are being met and lives are being changed forever. Your victories have never felt so sweet. We are really back. We were and are still humbled by the generosity shown by you in our pay what you can monthly challenges, entering our virtual events and buying my book. For those of you who donated your entry fees back to us rather than deferring it … I am humbled and tearing up as I type this. Our running community is just wonderful, thank you for making it so.
Run Woodstock is just over 2 weeks away, the weekend of September 9-10. For sure my favorite event of the fitness year, a celebration of our sport like no other in a pure Michigan forest setting. A weekend of runs, walks, yoga, campfires, and live music. Due to the long cut off times for the ultramarathons, those of us who want to just hike can take all the time we want. For example, you can take up to 10 hours to finish the half marathon, and yes, you still get a medal! Last year’s event donated over $9,000 to Washtenaw Promise and will beat that this year. An amazing nonprofit that gives preschool kids in the Ypsilanti and Willow Run districts a leg up, areas with many below the poverty level. WP matches these kids with college students as mentors and also sends these kids a book a month, very far out stuff!
To run or not to run, when fighting some kind of cold or sickness, that seems to be the question. My very unscientific thought on this is that if the sickness leaves you feeling as wiped out as if you'd just finished a long run, no matter what the schedule calls for, it's better to give the body a rest. That said, might there be be some value in a short run that has you get your heart rate up a bit, enough to break a sweat but not enough to add to your fatigue? Perhaps getting the metabolism going enough to help move the cold along? That is the route I follow but again, it’s not based in science, just my gut feeling. Then again, if you feel like you’re in a hole, I would think digging the hole deeper will make it harder to crawl out.
The Track and Field World Championships are taking place in Eugene, Oregon as I write this. Eugene is the running capital of the USA, where every track meet at University of Oregon’s Hayward Field is a sellout, season tickets are priceless, and the football team plays a distant second fiddle to running. Got to love Oregon! A highlight, 3 American women placed in the top 10 for the marathon, all running low 2:20’s with Sara Hall leading the way in 5th place overall in 2:22:10. If you have not been following the meet, perhaps check out a replay of a distance event on YouTube to be inspired, like the women’s marathon or the men’s 10K where American Grant Fisher placed 4th in 27:28. As runners, we can relate to the best in the world on some level. What they are doing is what we do, that is, to train, to race, and to challenge ourselves. We are not armchair athletes, we do it, we get it! Enjoy!
At the end of a long run that goes well, I get a feeling like I won the lottery. Most times I head out for these runs with such intrepidation, knowing from past long runs, that so often they end up ugly and that chances are slim that it’s going to be fun, not to mention, how brutally hard the long run can get. Any sane person who reads what I just wrote is thinking, why the hell do this at all? Fortunately, we know that ugly or gorgeous, the satisfaction we get when the long run is over is always sweet, and unfortunately, the only way to get to that sweet spot is to suffer.