Running Shorts

About a month ago I took a little trip to the bay area for a fun race - Bay to Breakers 12K in San Francisco. Both of my roommates were out of the country, I was out of a job, and two old teammates live in the bay area - perfect conditions for a destination race. As competitive runners, we often take our races very seriously. And that's not necessarily a bad thing; it leads to faster and faster times. Of course, it's easy to get burnt out on endless racing; it can feel like a chore. We sometimes forget that our sport is actually a lot of fun. And that's the benefit of having a destination race every once in a while. Sure, it's still a race ...but more than that, it's a vacation. It's a novel stimulus. It's fun. That was Bay to Breakers for me. I didn't run all that great: I finished 16th in 39:58, about the same pace I went through 18 in Boston. But boy, was it an experience. Bay to Breakers has a bit of a reputation as a party that thinks it...

I'm more than slightly ashamed it's taken me this long to post my race recap from the Boston Marathon. Now that it's summer and I'm not teaching, I really don't have an excuse. But the most shameful of all? Runner's World  - the most rec runner of all the rec runner magazines! - beat me to it. (My critiques of Runner's World is a topic for a whole 'nother post) Never again do I ever want to be beaten by anything associated with that publication. I should say that I (like many other Boston participants, I suspect) are torn about the race. Torn between conflicting emotions of pride and guilt. On the one hand, I'm very proud to have set a ten-minute PR that Patriot's Day. On the other hand, I can't help but feel guilty about being proud, because I know time and place and performance should all be secondary to the greater issue of terrorism and lives lost and bodies maimed. So I'm a little conflicted between how I feel versus how I'm ...