Natural Runners

One of yesterday's running partners, showing the all-terrain
nature of his gear.

Running with a dog is a humbling experience. If you are getting faster, feel like your times are improving, and your ego is growing like an amusement park balloon--grab a leash, a dog (preferably your own or a friend's) and hold your ears for the bursting ego balloon.

I started taking our then 4-year-old Golden Retriever, Ivan, to Tuckahoe State Park for trail runs a couple years ago. I had run a marathon, had knocked some time off my 10K and 10 mile times, and I didn't take Ivan running really, so I guessed I'd be dragging him by the end of the run. Out of the truck, onto the trail, and I quickly came to the conclusion that 4 legs are necessarily faster than 2.

Nose to the ground, bolting down hills, charging up them, adeptly adjusting to any change in terrain--he is a natural trail runner. We did a few 6-8 mile runs, and 11 miles is still the longest to date, at the end of which, he still bounded ahead at our final sprint to the lake.

Dog running, especially on trails, is a real throwback for me--I feel like a boy and his dog on an adventure, which is essentially accurate. Yesterday, Mike Keene and I ran with Ivan and Mike's sub-2-year yellow lab, Luke, in and around Wittman. Mike has the envious running route there that includes friends' dirt and gravel lanes and farms. In the time that we plod along at 8-9ish minute miles, the dogs sprint back and forth, gallop ahead, check back in, bound into and through the river, then wonder what's taking us so long?

Running with a dog gives them the opportunity to be a dog at their fullest, natural potential--tongue hanging out, heart-pounding, happy. And it reminds me that 1) we people are not the fastest designed runners on the planet, and 2) nor are the only ones who enjoy going for a run.

Runners Begetting Runners

The runners of Day 47 of the Endurance 50--50 marathons in 50 states in 50 days--the Delaware Marathon course in Wilmington. Dean Karnazes center, kneeling, Mikes Keene and Valliant far left, standing.

I ran 13.5 miles with Don Marvel today; a great experience. We chatted about running, life, sports, family, and road racing. Some rich conversation and a good way to sweat out some St. Patrick's Day indulgences.

Going over the Peachblossom Creek bridge, we talked about the lack of young people in organized running. Part of the reason could be kids specializing in sports at very young ages--from 5 years old, you can play soccer, baseball, lacrosse, you name it. By the time they get to high school, they are locked in; too late for cross country or track to have any appeal.

There may be hope though, both on the grassroots level and through the media coverage of the exploits of determined runners.

At St. Michaels Elementary School, Physical Education teacher Kevin Baum has organized an after school running club for the past two years. Elementary students meet and do 1-mile fun runs with Kevin. Tim Bamforth, a Physical Education teacher in Delaware has groups of students that will meet him in the morning for runs. And there are other creative teachers setting great examples for young runners.

Then there are runners who strive for unusual accomplishments; the kind that attract a media looking for examples of a positive human spirit in the face of Iraq, poverty, global warming, and baseball free agency. When a teacher runs across the country with his gear in a jogging stroller to keep a promise to his students, it matters. When Tim Twietmeyer finishes his 25th Western States 100 in under 24 hours or Neil Weygandt finishes his 40th consecutive Boston Marathon, it inspires. And when a runner runs 50 marathons, in 50 states, in 50 days, and invites 50 runners to run with him each day, the number of lives touched is extraordinary.

Who are the other running ambassadors? How else is the sport being spread?

Roots Running

If I'd hauled the camera this past Sunday, you'd see a lot more mud and
warmer runners.

I started running in high school because I was tired of soccer practice. I'd played soccer through youth league, middle school, and a year of high school, and was done. I fell in with a few other free-thinking, skateboarding vagrants, who said, "We're going to run cross country. You chill out, run through the hills, and have a blast. You in?"

I was the new kid at school in Hagerstown. Sounded interesting, and I'd be set for lacrosse in the spring. Our home course was hilly and wooded and fun. 3.1 miles became a breeze, and our coach would frequently load us into the school van and turn us loose on the C&O Canal tow path or a trail around the Antietam battlefield. I consistently placed between 3rd and 5th for our team at meets (in the 20:00s for 5K, it was a small school) and we traveled into West Virginia, Delaware, and western Maryland and ran in the woods. I was 15 and 16 at the time.

Running didn't find me again until I was 22 and hell-bent on joining the Army. I got into the routine of running almost every day, and occasionally ran from Oxford to Easton, where I would bum a ride back down Route 333 from a friend. My self-inflicted boot camp, and a chance meeting with my now-wife (we became the couple who ran 2 or 3 miles together before hitting the dock bar at Schooners Landing at night), provided me with the discipline I needed to finish college, while working, and then find a real job, whatever that may mean.

Entering races through that time meant 5Ks and 10Ks. It was the group-think of a friend that got us signed up for the Annapolis 10-miler 6 years ago (incidentally, that friend was too hung-over on race day to make the trip to the western shore). I suffered through the hills, but ran well enough for me, and enjoyed the longer distance among the other runners.

Two daughters and a daytime desk job caught up to me coming up on Christmas time a few years back, and I made a commitment to get back running. My goal was the Oxford Day 10K in April--a race from my roots, that I had never done. Training for that race, I began picking up Runners World and Running Times magazines and read about a nut named Dean Karnazes who was trying to run 300 miles without sleeping. I picked up his running autobiography and other magazines and books, kept running, and decided I was going to run the Baltimore Marathon that fall.

Distance is what has made it stick. I enjoy the time on the road or (even better) the trails. I enjoy pushing myself. I enjoy going to work on a Friday after a 4:45am 15-mile run. I've found a training partner equally nutty who enjoys the long runs, and the goal races of increasing distances--26.2 miles, 34 miles, 50 miles.

Roots running hits on a couple levels for me. It is a return to my roots--of my first runs in the hills and the C&O canal 17 years ago; it is a return and refocus on the things that keep me rooted--family, friends, being outside, writing; and it is nurturing and growing solid roots for life ahead.

Three of us put in a great 11-ish mile run this past Sunday at Tuckahoe, mud-happy in stellar weather. Stephen talked about running marathons with his father and how his own son ran the last couple hundred yards of the B&A Trail Marathon with him the weekend before. Mike's two girls each won their age group in a 3-mile race in Easton the day before. And my 5-year old ran her first 1-mile race the day before as well, with her sister (in a stroller) and me behind her. I was overfilled when she told our friends that night at dinner, "I ran 1 mile in a race today!"

That's my roots running story, or at least part of it. What's yours?