Are You Living It?

Here in Northern California, the cold weather has arrived with winters breath, and the fall leaves are now dappling their color on the roads. With the rain and wind, the leaves have lost their last hold in the trees, and now wait to be frozen in place under the coming snows. Until then, they lay in wait to catch the unsuspecting cyclist or runner off guard with their ice-like slipperiness.

Ran with my feet wet this weekend and didn’t get blisters but apparently compromised the new skin on the bottom of my feet, because I started to get a hot spot less than 10 minutes into my run today. Now I have a nice big blister right where the last one was…not quite AS big, thank God.

Here’s my first official action as a member of the Runner’s World advisory board: encouraging you marathoners to take the marathon survey on the front page of the Runner’s World site. While you’re at it, check out the great forums, including many threads on yoga (where one of my biggest fans has promoted my book; I’m a fan of hers, too). My first yoga column for the magazine will run in the September issue.

The documentary of Dean Karnazes’ incredible running achievement opens soon:

We received the following report from Dean Karnazes yesterday, an amazing summary of his race across the Gobi Desert.  It’s incredible to even finish this odyssey, but out of 190 entries, Dean finished fourth.  Check it out:

NOTES FROM MY TNF CHINA VISIT

JUNE 4-17, 2008

I would venture to say that most of you reading this column are like me, you’re drawn to extremes.  Moderation bores you.  You seek challenges and adventures that dwell on the outer edges.  The path of least resistance is not a route much traveled.

Would have known that there was something missing for the world to be right or he right in it and would have set forth to wander wherever it was needed for as long as it took until he came upon one and he would have known that that was what he sought and it would have been. -Cormac McCarthy

My left shin was raging literally a quarter of a mile into my run last night.  As Kip would say, “I was just a little T-O’ed.”  I’d planned a 70 minute run, so when I was already in pain before minute three, it was frustrating to say the least.

Jay and I blasted out of town headed for the trails of Sand Canyon. With just a quick stop at one of our favorite bike shops, Kokopelli Bike and Board, for some trail intel, high tech gooey nutrition and to ogle over their enormous bike inventory, we were on our way. We arrived at the trail head and quickly plotted out a series of twist, turns and loops that would give us about a 12 mile run, which was about 8 miles too many given our current fitness levels.

I’ve put off writing this post for more than a week now on the theory that sometimes meaningful moments just don’t relay very well as stories.  There’s some social trigger in us that makes us want to blab about everything, but we have to stop ourselves and realize some things are best cherished in private.  Otherwise the risk is receiving the “I guess you had to be there” look from your audience, or worse, the averted glance and fake throat-clearing cough that means the person not only doesn’t know why you just told them what you did, but really, really wishes you hadn’t.