Archive For The “Running Free” Category
Some days the old runner doesn’t feel all that excited about writing. Writing a hell of a lot like running. Some days you just gotta do it whether you’re in the mood or not. The old runner was a septuagenarian before he finally came to grips with his soul’s, his spirit’s, essence of contrariness….
Running Times, December 1995 The Hood To Coast Relay is a big race – bigger than you know. In the business world of sport, Hood to Coast (H2C) is real, authentic, and, in Portland, Oregon, it’s big-time serious. Last year, Nike head Phil Knight gave Alberto Salazar a black BMW convertible for leading, and anchoring,…
This is Chapter 35 from Dr. Timothy Tays’ The Chameleon Complex. Which turns out not so complex once a trained cognitive therapist explains it to you in memoir form. A runner’s goal is to get the best out of himself. Herself. Our goal as humans is to be our authentic selves. – JDW Timmy…
I have to wonder, what were you like when you were young? The sexy young boss’s wife asks a lame visitor to her kitchen in Richard Russo’s Nobody’s Fool. Just like this, the old man says. Only more so. A novel I read at the neo-classical-agrarian home of Grant Justice. The woods and fields along…
At the time Phil sat down with me for this interview, I couldn’t help thinking about statistics. With the two of us alone in the room, the average net worth was something like $3.5 billion. – JDW Behind every champion is the willingness to risk defeat at the hope of claiming victory. The willingness to…
Running is about more than just putting one foot in front of the other; it is about our lifestyle and who we are. – Joan Benoit Samuelson June, 1991 “I’m not looking beyond this race,” Joan Benoit Samuelson said before the Boston Marathon. “For me to continue, it’s necessary to run under 2:30.” The 33-year-old,…
The distance runner is mysteriously reconciling the separations of body and mind, of pain and pleasure, of the conscious and the unconscious. He is repairing the rent, and healing the wound in his divided self. He has found a way to make the ordinary extraordinary; the commonplace unique; the everyday eternal. ― George Sheehan Think of…
Regarding the fitness craze: America has lost its soul; now it’s trying to save its body. ― George Carlin The old man was exhausted. Early is squirrelly. Forced to move up his run an hour or so, due to a happily rare doctor’s visit. The old man’s routine was his armor. If he could just keep…
The original gangsters of running were all about going fast. Then faster. A few of us got distracted by the allure of mileage accumulation. But, basically, never quit trying, fast as we could go, even if it killed us. Many lessons were learned. Some heeded. – JDW Why write about a guy who runs 2:12:31?…
I was watching the 2017 Chicago Marathon on television. Thinking this sport has come a long way. Thinking how much I loved the old days. Thinking how much I loved the old stories. – JDW The Marathon Man A former marathoner sings the praises of a book on distance runner Buddy Edelen By Kenny Moore for…