I am turning fifty later this year.
I was thirty-ish when I started running.
Twenty years later I can knock out a ten klick run with barely forethought, which is quite a distance fitness-wise from where I started. But none of that happened without a lot of big numbers and hard work.
In fact sat down to look at my actual data and according to Strava (for which my records only go back about two-thirds of my running career) I have logged over sixteen thousand kilometres, climbed over ninety-two kilometres of elevation whist running, and spent over eighteen hundred hours logging distance, footstep after footstep, with a GPS watch attached to my wrist.
Churning through some quick math, well… that’s a lot.
In fact, that last stat in particular catches my eye as I write this: eighteen hundred hours logged, all time on feet plodding forward, well that is about two and a half months… solid.
Reading that I have spent two and a half months of the last twenty-ish years of my life plodding down asphalt paths and narrow trails (and sometimes frustratingly round the indoor track at the gym) reminds me that this sport has consumed a huge chunk of my life.
So, in what I hope is the last of my introduction posts, I will simply reiterate: I have a lot of stories that weave through, around, and sometimes trip over this running thing and I hope I can find the motivation to both keep adding to those numbers, and now to fill some posts with tales of the same.
Let’s get started.
Definitions
- asphalt paths
- I'm sure running routes are constructed of materials as diverse as the places they are set down, but in my city we pave public trails with 1.5m width of simple black asphalt and call them multi-use corridors. Bikes, scooters, strollers, rollerblades, runners, pets, and pedestrians strolling through the city make use of these paths. They are hot and smooth in the summer, glossy wet in the rain, and often a bit icy (though cleared) in the winter.
- gps watch
- This is not an endorsement for any particular brand or model. I'm a Garmin guy myself, but owning a dedicated watch that tracks all your running metrics is pretty much standard fare as a modern day runner.
- klick
- As a Canadian I run in metric. As a writer, I find the word kilometre clunky and clinical. I'll usually use the colloquial "klick" or "klicks" to substitute in for this.
- motivation
- Like many things in life, running is an act of motivation. You make yourself put on the gear. You put in the effort to lace up. You open the front door and you step out into the world and the weather. You press the start button on your watch and you go. Step after step, one footfall at a time.
- strava
- I mention this running app and service quite frequently, not as any kind of endorsement but rather just because it happens to be the place where I've been logging my runs for most of my time on the trails and where most of my friends log their runs. We probably will never escape, but it's a love-hate relationship.
