Bare Chest Running

In the last 3 miles of my long run Sunday the shirt came off. It was pushing 80. While this is a common thing in my home state of Florida, its somewhat unusual to see bare chested (male) runners in Maryland 'burbs. Well, this morning, I took it off again: it really is cooler in 70 F / 75% humidity to be running without a shirt. When I was young in Florida, I never thought twice about it. It is senseless to impair my training by being warmer than is necessary due to an ill-conceived sense of modesty.

So, in this my 7th summer of return to fitness, I'll do it shirtless. I have to say Rachel Toor's almost lyrical article in Running Times on the topic some months ago helped validate my new found freedom!

Why We Run

I took Denise out for her first longer run in preparation for her fall half marathon today. Its a week after the eye-opening experience at Bear Mountain. Today's run at Lake Artemisia was more familiar, except for one event. As we ran past the lake, I noticed a large raptor hovering over the water. I initially thought it was an osprey fishing, a sight we often see. I realized that the bird was much too big: it could only have been an eagle. I plummeted to the water's surface and came up with a large fish.

Sights like this are still another reason we run.

Bear Mountain, Day Two

I got up at my usual 4:30 and went down to the Hampton Inn lobby to get cups of coffee for Denise and me. The North Face and Goretex race staff were already trickling down sleepily, not as frisky as they were the day before or would be in about 5 hours. Stepping outside and breathing in the early morning air, I could see a glow over the mountain to the east. Unlike Maryland, that glow in the east wasn't the sun, it was NYC.

Denise and I made it up to starting line in Bear Mountain State Park. The 5K race was the last to begin. Its a 5-star technical trail, the first Denise and I have ever experienced. Portions were so rocky that a runner had to jump from one small patch of mud to another to use the only soft, flat footing available. At other points, we were reduced to a rock scramble. The scenery was incredible, whether crossing babbling streams or running along the crest with steep drop-offs to a stream on one side and Hessian Lake on the other. Denise emerged at the end of the run tired, enthused, and an avid trail runner.

The Sunday competitors and spectators were not as campy as the Saturday crowd but running 3 to 13.1 miles on those trails is certainly a challenge. The weekend itself once again pushed back the mental barriers we all create for ourselves in our physically indolent lives that we let define and limit what we think we can do. Trail running is repeatedly showing me that many of our perceptions of our physical limits are artificial and limit us only if we let them.

North Face Endurance Challenge, Day One

We drove up to Bear Mountain, NY, for the North Face Endurance Challenge races this weekend. Arriving at the expo and finish line, Denise and I watched the marathoners, 50K runners, and 50 mile runners complete their runs over the rough, single track trails of Bear Mountain.The finish line had a picnic atmosphere as families and friends watched their runners complete what most of us would consider super-human feats of running. Normally Denise and I stand out in a crowd as two near anorexic seniors. Here, we fit in as just another fit couple, maybe with just a bit of extra weight hanging on to us. In this world of endurance animals, we're just another pair of running "smucks".

I had to think about what it is to live to be able to run 50 kilometers or 50 miles over mountainous single trails. In 2004, when I started running, I ran in part as a purification from the volubility around me. America was in an orgy of self-indulgence. Economists in the federal administration were actually beginning to tell us that federal and personal deficits were good for economy. To eschew the rampant self-indulgence and go out and run became an act of purification and penance for the excess going on around me.

Walking through this crowd today, I see people who eschew the seductive glow of the CRT and LED. By doing so, they miss the propagandist message that "you deserve a break today". They miss the condition known as metabolic syndrome, which now affects nearly two thirds of the U.S. adult population. Instead, they go out and run 5, 10, maybe 15 miles in training. Its simple, direct, and sometimes brutal. It is life without all the electronic and pharmaceutical drugs we have created to inure us against it..

Tomorrow I take Denise on our first trail race. Its only a 5K. But we are crossing over into a still another way of viewing ourselves and the world.