Fitness

Super for-real helpful motivation for summer running

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Run4LuvI just found out National Running Day is June 3. I didn’t even know that was a thing.

It’s timely, given how much my enthusiasm for running wanes with the beginning of the season I am most likely to want to do nothing more exciting than melt into the couch.

Summer.

Summer is great for warm evenings on a patio with an adult beverage, concerts in the park with an adult beverage, sitting by a campfire late into the night with an adult beverage … Do you see a pattern here? Well, running isn’t really related to any of that.

To compensate, I just scheduled at least one running event a month until November. I need that kind of looming threat. Back in the day, people had things like cave bears and velociraptors as motivation to keep from developing back fat. Now, we’re lured off our tushes by paper bibs, ill-fitting shirts and participation medals. Mike and I are kicking off this wretched running season with a half marathon next week named after our state tuber.

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Fitness, Nonsense

Musings and Mind Games: A Runner’s Race Day Countdown

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skullTomorrow is the Race to Robie Creek, the self-proclaimed toughest race in the northwest.

It’s not so bad. We’ve done it. It’s actually quite a pleasant ascent through a rocky canyon, up a dirt road and over a mountain and back down to a little valley where nudists and tree-huggers and hillbillies live in harmony.

True, the rocks of that little canyon direct heat like a suntan reflector cone right down on that dusty road and the hoards of people ascending more than two thousand feet over 8 miles to the summit. That’s not so pleasant.

Then there’s wildlife. Not the gentle, hoofed kind, either. The kind that coil behind a rock or stalk you from a cliff face. My strategy for avoiding wildlife is that slow thing I do. Think about it. One of little known dangers of being a faster runner is the higher likelihood of getting picked off by carnivores. Because, you know, you’re first.

It does too make sense.

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