Hello, Abridged Running History, Upcoming Posts

Good morning, folks. Chris, thanks for the...kind introduction. In terms of hand-eye coordination, my guess is Chris is more of a "natural" athlete than I am, but my long chicken legs do give me an advantage in distance running. We'll see how each of us does about a year from now.

The only thing more boring than training for a marathon has to be reading about training for a marathon, so I'll do my best to entertain over the coming months. For those who don't know me, I'm one of Chris's old college friends/running buddies. I moved to Washington, DC four months ago to attend graduate school after spending five years in New York.

One of the defining characteristics of my various homes over the past 10 years has been my running route. In college, there was the Charles River, which I always romanticized as the perfect spot. After graduation I spent a year in China, mostly in Beijing. While that city has many strengths, air quality is not among them. To keep up my running, I hit the dreaded treadmill in the glocal Bally's gym, accepting the near-constant ogling from curious Chinese gym rats/gym attendants who had apparently never seen someone run faster than 6 mph.

I then moved to New York a year and a half after having last run outside. I continued hitting the treadmill, paying $80/month for the privilege, until realizing the East River path was only a few blocks away. For the next few years, I dodged adventurous fishermen (do they eat those?), amateur tuba players, homeless people, and New School potheads on jogs through the dystopian Lower East Side industrial landscape. If they haven't filmed a climactic Batman battle scene there, they should. I wouldn't have gotten into these runs without a little help from friends Brian and Alex, the latter of whom most of you should know.

Today, I live in Kalorama Heights, Washington, DC, two blocks from Rock Creek Park. Man do I love this park. Beautiful rolling wooded paths hugging the Creek and cutting under grand bridges and arches. DC loses to New York in many categories, but not outdoor sports. The running and biking scenes here are legit.

So, that's the running path that has gotten me here. In upcoming posts I hope to share my thoughts on cold weather running, marathon motivation techniques, PEDs, and more. For now, it's time to study...