Welcome from the middle of the pack

I know, I know...a blog. How cliché. How self-serving and narcissistic. And ultimately, how pointless to throw these words out into cyberspace where no one (well, maybe my wife - Hi, honey!) will actually read them.

Then again, why do I run? Why do I go out day after day, week after week putting in countless miles, ripping through dozens of pairs of shoes, sweating my ass off in the summer, freezing through the bitter winter months, living through blisters and blackened toenails? I'm not fooling anyone here. I'm not a great runner. I've never won a race.* At my best, when I was in my 20s, I averaged a 6:59 mile at the Indianapolis Mini-Marathon. Now, I'm comfortable at about an 8:30 pace. I've finished somewhere in the middle of every race I've ever run.

Writing's a lot like running, though. The more you do it, the better you get, right? Besides, it's therapeutic. A man thinks about a lot of stuff out there on the roads. Some of them are great ideas. Most aren't. But if you don't have someplace to jot those ideas down, they're gone forever. And like those countless miles, these countless words aren't pointless. They have a purpose, if for nothing else but to exercise the brain as well as the legs.

Plus, I think I have something to offer to the running community. I've been doing this running thing for a long time. I've seen a whole bunch of sights from my perspective at the middle of the pack. I've had some setbacks, some successes. From that vantage point, I like to think I'm similar to many of you. Maybe, like me, when you finish a long run you think you're the coolest person in the world. You think about your non-running friends and say, "I just ran 10 miles today. What did they do?" Maybe, like me, you've got an iPod full of (what my wife calls) "angry rock" music that pumps you up for another three-miles when you feel like you could just as well stop at mile 10. Maybe you get excited by a new pair of running shoes or a new pair of sweat-wicking socks. Maybe you have about five old pairs of the smelliest, grungiest running shoes in your garage—too worn out to run in but too dear to you to have the heart to throw away.

And maybe, like me, your non-running wives or husbands think you're a little crazy. Maybe, just maybe, you are. After all, it takes a certain type of person to run. You have to be a bit of a masochist. And you really have to like who you are. You're lost in conversation with yourself for a lot of hours out there, and if you don't like that kind of company...well...then you probably don't like running all that much and you're probably not reading this blog anyway.

I'm not going to kid myself and think this blog is going to change the world. I know this is just another little journal in a sea of running literature. But it's my little niche. And I write for the same reason why I run races—not to win, but to participate, to be part of something cool, something special. To get exercise. To feel good about myself. To stretch—my mind as well as my body.

Happy reading, and happy running.

*In the interest of full disclosure, that's not entirely true: I won a JV cross-country race when I was in high school.