Day Dreaming Of Running

It’s a Wednesday afternoon at 1:45 pm. I am staring out the window of my 5th floor office in Atlanta into a mountain range of skyscrapers. What I’d rather be doing at this very moment is running along a real mountain range.

Like most, I don’t love or hate my job. It is what it is. It provides income so my family and I can live in a house, drive cars, eat, and buy running shoes. It is a means to an end. But on this particular day, I can’t help but wonder what is would be like if running were my job. What if I could turn back the hands of time 15 years? What if I was genetically blessed with flexibility, extraordinary lung capacity, and the right combination of fast and slow twitch muscle fibers? Could I handle two-a-days and 80-mile weeks? Could I learn to deal with the discomfort of oxygen debt and extreme fatigue? Would I crack under the intense pressure of competition? Maybe I could be an elite runner.

Then my thoughts drift back to my last marathon where I struggled to break four hours and nearly vomited from consuming too many energy gels. On second thought, maybe I wasn’t designed to be an elite runner. Regardless, a passion for running is in my soul. Tonight I’ll lace-up my shoes for a scheduled five mile run with a sense of adventure and excitement that is unmatched by any elite athlete. The beauty of running is that this sense of adventure and excitement flows all the way from the front to the back of the pack.

Welcome to the "Your Running Life" Blog

Welcome to the “Your Running Life” blog and thank you for reading our inaugural post. To help understand what this blog is all about, please consider the following questions:

· Do you frequently have a gnawing feeling in your soul that you’d rather be running?
· When you’re at work, does your mind wander to your next race?
· When driving your kids to pre-school, do you wish that you could transport them using a baby jogger instead?
· Do you check race calendars when choosing a location for your next family vacation?
· When traveling on business, do you choose hotels based on their proximity to parks or greenways?
· Does your bookshelf contain the names Sheehan, Galloway, and Parker instead of Faulkner, Clancy, and Grisham? Do you struggle to wake-up on Monday mornings at 6:30 am to go to work but literally jump out of bed at 5:00 am on Saturdays for your long run

If you answered any of these questions with a resounding “yes”, then this running blog was designed for you. Your Running Life is located at the intersection of running and life. Running will always be a primary topic on this blog, however, many posts will be written through the lens of family, friends, and work (i.e. real life). A purpose of this blog is to provide a discussion forum for enthusiastic, like-minded runners who love to run but have lives as well. We’ll do some essays, commentary, product reviews, race reviews, and advice from the middle of the pack. Family members and friends of runners (who must deal with our obsession) are also invited to join in.

Like you, I am a runner. I love running. Besides spending time with my family, there is nothing I’d rather be doing than running. If I had the time, energy, or physical ability, I would run every day and race every weekend. At the same time, I am also a spouse, parent, friend, and employee. With these other responsibilities and roles, I rarely have the opportunity to run as often as I’d like. Nonetheless, running is part of the glue that holds my life together. It adds to my emotional, mental, and physical well-being. In fact, I hope that running likely makes me a better spouse, parent, friend, and employee. Like you, I am trying to juggle the chaos of my life while ensuring that I “get my run in.”

If you’ve read this far, you understand exactly what I’m talking about. So comment on a post. Give some advice. Share a story. After all, if you aren’t running at this moment, you might as well be reading or writing about it.