Running Reporter

In July, I’ll run the AJC Peachtree Road Race 10K. I’m not training for it at all. 

In September, I’ll re-run the most difficult race of my life: the North Face Endurance Challenge 50K trail race. I’m training so much for it, my life has turned into a steady rhythm: Work, Run, Sleep. Repeat.

At first glance, the two races could not be more different:

The Peachtree draws 60,000. Last year, less than 200 finished the North Face 50K

The Peachtree is contained by the sidewalks that line the road and the crowds that cheer.

In the North Face, trees, rocks, and ridges form the twisting 31 mile course.

The Peachtree is a rolling party; North Face is a painful test of endurance.

Despite those (obvious) differences, I love both races for some of the same reasons.

I laced up my shoes and LEFT MY CAMERA BEHIND. It almost made me twitchy, thinking I should have been capturing Monday night's Boston Solidarity run with pictures, video, and tweets. But unlike last Tuesday's run, I was off the clock. So I enjoyed the run. 

ENJOYED it. Is there any better way to push back? Pictures from runners across the country filled by Facebook and Twitter feeds. Eighty cities took part in the official 6:30PM Monday night run.

Someone once told me blogging was like standing in the closet and talking to yourself. I hesitate to write this because there’s so much out there. Emotions that are still very raw and very real.

But I write a blog about reporting and running. This week, those parts of my life came crashing together in a terrible and inspiring way.  It’s impossible for me to let this week go WITHOUT writing a blog. Even if I’m the only one hearing it through the roar of endlessly repeated information.

If I wanted to run just another marathon, I wouldn’t have gone to Paris. The differences were obvious, and I loved them for giving me something to remember.

WATER:  I’d been pre-warned Parisians don’t like their tap water, and would never offer it as a free option in a café unless specifically requested. Vittel, a bottled water company, was a major sponsor of the race, and we knew in advance the water stops would be handing out small bottles.

On March 27th, runners across the nation sat poised at their computers, ready to register for “The People’s Marathon”, the Marine Corps Marathon. Within minutes, they were less poised.

Atlanta runner Casey Garett told me, “I finally got the registration page only to get booted out of it. I nearly threw my computer across the room.”

Jane Eastham said, “I tried starting at noon exactly and refreshed on two different computers for 1 hour and 20 minutes.

You can tell everything about a person by the way they treat the people they don’t think matter. We’re all nice (or at least civil) to our friends and co-workers. We have to see them everyday. But the people in the drive-thru? Waiting on your table? Opening the dressing room? The way you treat THEM, that says everything about YOU.

I could fill this blog with stories of my days in polyester uniforms, but this is a different blog. It’s about water stop duty.

I wrapped my batgirl cape around my shoulders as I frantically scanned the crowd. My fellow super heroes were nowhere to be found. It was my first adventure in a marathon relay, and it was off to a rough start.

The Atlanta Track Club launched the Atlanta Marathon two years ago after canceling the full Thanksgiving marathon (they still run the half marathon and 5K on Thanksgiving Day).  Since it’s the weekend of Halloween, it’s a great opportunity for runners to race in costume.

This April, I’ll run my 19th full/ultra marathon. My idea of running is still based on the image of my dad running around the block in his blue nylon shorts. I thought it was cool when I was 6; embarrassing when I was 16. After all these years and all those marathons, when I hear the word “RUN”; that’s still the first image that pops into my mind.

But the marathon has changed. A lot. The changes have left old school running guys scrambling to keep up.

My race medals are headed to a higher power.  I won’t miss them one bit.

In a blog earlier this month, I mentioned I’m not a medal collector. I don’t hang them or display them. They’re stuck away in a box gathering dust. Ultra marathoner Javier De Jesus sent me a link to Medals4Mettle, a charity that collects marathon and triathlon medals and gives them to patients (mostly kids) fighting their own race to live.

CLICK HERE FOR FULL PHOTO GALLERY

The Georgia chapter is pretty small: one guy.

I grew up in a home where processed food was practically non-existent. It’s not that my parents were that healthy, just that broke. Homemade cookies were cheaper than brand name versions. Better yet, my mom called left over pancakes “cookies”. These were cold whole-wheat pancakes, so she wasn’t really fooling anyone.

Instead of turning me into a health nut, it turned me into that kid in the lunchroom that eyed your Oreo cookies with such jealous intensity, it creeped you out.