Like a lot of runners in training, I prefer to lay down the miles with other people.  Though as I have gotten older and balancing my life schedule becomes more precarious I find that there the roads a bit more lonely.  Despite this solitude I know I am part of something bigger.

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Writer’s note:  Generally speaking I like to let me ideas marinade a bit.  Think about them for a few runs, and a few showers.  Try to make sure this is something I want to try to write about.  Something I want to attempt to express. While I don’t always succeed in what I set out to accomplish (kind of like running amiright?), I try to put my own little spin on universal ideas.  Here is my shot at why we run. . . 

A few weeks back I had the opportunity to attempt something that has been a personal streak of mine.  Not the kind of streak that most people think about when it comes to running.  No, I have a weekly day off that I cherish.  This is something that I didn’t even intend to start.  It began in the Spring of 1996, during the track season of my freshman year of high school.  It continued to the starting line of a local road race.  The streak was 20 years of running a sub five minute mile at least once during the year.  The Lincoln Mile was to be my 21st year.  The only problem was that it was the least confident I had been going into a mile race and just wanted to keep it close.

Have you ever surveyed a group of people why they run? Try it with your Saturday long run group.  Approach an after work track session and see what they say.  You ask the question fifty times, you are likely to get fifty different answers.  It is a question I have become somewhat obsessed with the last few years.  I work with high school kids in both cross country and track.  While I try to avoid applying the mental state of teens to the population as a whole (spend some time around a group of sixteen year olds and you will get an idea of what I mean), there has to be some crossover.  Getting kids to run is a challenging task.  Most of it stems from the fact that there is a fear there.  A fear of coming in last or failing at something.  Pretty common perspectives, but as most of us know, mostly irrational.  But I would be curious if these same fears apply to the “adult”demographic.  Is it fear, or just the simple friction of life that keeps a person from starting to run (or at least exercise)? Continue reading →

SPEAK UP LINK (Click here to send a message to the Department of the Interior)

I try to keep this site apolitical.  I try to keep it positive.  I try (and generally fail) to keep it updated once a week.

I would love to be more poetic or illustrative of how I feel about this.  But I don’t have the time in me.  I will say this though.  My time is given to my children and the runners I coach (anything leftover is for my wife and my own running, in that order).  My kids distract me at times from the hobbies that I enjoy.  But they are getting old enough for me to take them out on little adventures and experience the outdoors.

There are some places under threat to private development right now.  The short-term gains of selling open spaces to business for who knows what use.  But taking wild places and digging them up for profit is not the direction we need to go.  Those of us who spend time outdoors, so all of you, get why being outside is important and wonderful.  So you need to get your voice out there.  At least try.  While I may not have time because of my kids, I want them to have time to visit some of the greatest places our country has to offer when they get older.

I debated even writing this. Most debates involve time and multiple rebuttals and counterarguments.  This one really didn’t have those elements. Keeping me from writing this were two simple fears.  One is that there is no way I could capture the essence of what I wanted to convey.  The other is my reluctance to share various parts of my life via social media.  There are certain components of our individual worlds (experiences, feelings) that might be better kept to those that know you best, as opposed to being put out for public consumption.

However, being psyched up and proud of an experience added to the mere possibility that someone might read this and take on a challenge they didn’t think possible was enough for me to put it out there.  So here you go. Those of you have who have been through this get it.  Those that haven’t, maybe you can relate or want to give it a shot.  Anyone else doesn’t care or doesn’t understand, but maybe they have their own thing.

So here is the story that belongs to me.

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Cayuga Trails 50 Miler from Shai Ben-Dor on Vimeo Preview video of an upcoming peak race for me.

We each have our own journeys.  I have always known this.  But knowing and realizing strike me as different things.  We have these people who support us, and encourage us, and run with us, and challenge us.  On occasion (okay, maybe more than one occasion) you might compare your paces or mileage or splits to other runners.  Despite the shared experience of running, we each bring a very different take to the start line.  Talent, perspective, workout philosophy, social media presence, work ethic, knowledge, motivation, the list goes on and on.  Too often I have compared my own path to the ones that others are on.

My life has taken me away from this project the last four months.  Dad life, teaching, coaching track, and training have soaked up the time I have had available for one of the few creative outlets that I have allowed myself.  That being said, I know I am getting what I can out of my life in virtually all aspects.  The challenge of getting ready for races and balancing the other WAY more important parts of my world has at times been frustrating.  I want to race well.  While I measure my performances against my past self, and even others, the less important that becomes to me.  Though at times I think I just tell myself this to make me feel better about a poor race.  But the process of preparing for a race, at least this time around, has been surprisingly constructive in how I view running.

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