Now Available: Private Running Lessons

Sometimes things happen to me that have absolutely nothing to do with running, and people tell me I should write about it in my blog. Usually I refuse, because if I did that then I would have nothing left to write about in my diary. I’ve decided to make one exception though, mostly just to appease all these people who are so curious about my non-running related thoughts. So here’s the main non-running thing that’s been on my mind for the last 90 seconds or so: how has Brothers and Sisters managed to stay on the air for so many years? I watched the entire first season during my junior year of college, when I would accept pretty much any form of procrastination. It is a terrible show. I forget why it’s so terrible, but I do remember that I was sure that it wouldn’t get renewed, but now here we are in its fourth season, entirely uncanceled.

On to more pressing matters: I’m registered for a marathon that’s happening in less than a week. I haven’t thought a lot about this marathon, I certainly haven’t trained for it, and I haven’t even really decided whether or not I’m going to do it. I still have pretty bad tendinitis in my IT bands, so I’m sure that if I try to run it I won’t last more than five or ten miles, but walking it sounds horrible. I hate walking. And besides not training for running a marathon, I definitely haven’t been training for walking one either. But sometimes my dad goes on backpacking trips and hikes up to 25 miles a day, for more than one day in a row. And he’s wearing a backpack! I’m fairly positive that if he can do that, then I can do it for just one day with no backpack (I think these skills are transferable because we’re related).

To be honest, I don’t think anybody will know if I’m actually doing the marathon or not until Sunday morning, myself included. I think there’s a good chance that I will though – my car broke down last weekend so I’ve had to resort to riding my bike everywhere. A couple weeks of riding my bike around town feels more or less equivalent to the months of training runs I did in preparation for my last marathon – which was only in June by the way. I imagine most of the training I did then will carry over to four months later. Now that I’ve written this all out, I’m quite sure that I’m in great shape to run a marathon this Sunday.

All this great training insight I have reminds me of a conversation I had today. I was giving a client a hard time scheduling an appointment with me because I kept hearing different times about the middle school cross-country meet I’m going to this week. When I explained to her what was going on, she got excited and said, “Oh! You’re a running coach? I need a running coach!” I immediately cautioned her that I’m currently undergoing my first coaching experience ever, as an assistant with middle-school kids, but told her I have a lifetime of running experience and so I could offer any advice I might have to her. Now I’m regretting it. I ought to have assured her that I’m an expert running coach and set up running lessons based on the training methods seen here in my blog. Next time I’ll be ready.

Lesson one of my running coaching would obviously be on animal/lower leg photography. Here’s my most recent picture, taken after Wednesday’s hash, where I got all scratched up tromping through homeless camps on the side of a freeway entrance:

One last note unrelated to running, but for those of you who love reading blogs – a guy I knew in high school posted his mom’s blog on facebook, and it’s pretty great. It’s all about a project she just started where she gives away $100 to a complete stranger every single day for a month. I can’t afford to do that, but maybe I could do something like give a free piece of running advice to a stranger every day for a month. I’m sure that would make people just as happy.

Miles run this week: 0
Miles run in 2010: 484