In a cross-country race, everyone strives to finish in first place. But in Cross country, the best place to take is second–right behind the leader.
Tag Archives: running
The Hollowness of Victory and the Agony of Da Feet
A couple of weeks back, I wrote about coming in second in my age group in a 5K. The guy who beat me by enough time to eat a banana and drink a bottle of water and then make a pit stop before seeing me straggle up to the finish line was Rene Peterson, a […]
Take Up Your Cross
Running with the cross in 2014 for a 5K. We passed the load from runner to runner. Jesus didn’t have a wheel.
Get Your Motor Running
You’ve probably had the experience: You set out on a longish run. Let’s say you’re going five miles. You know you can do five miles. Five miles is a piece of cake. (And by the way, if you’re thinking that five miles is more like a sledgehammer than a piece of cake, you can get […]
Second Place Is Fine
Recently, I ran a 5K. Once again, I was aiming to complete the course in 23:30, but once again I ran out of gas along the way. When I realized that I could not reach my goal time, I eased up and did not even make a new PR. That was probably a poor choice. […]
Taking the Church on the Road
A growing number of people, it seems, are discovering that running and Christianity are not all that incompatible. Granted, I’ve had a couple of Sunday morning routines interrupted by road races, but that’s a couple of times in a year. A story in the Deseret News, timed to coincide with the Boston Marathon, describes several […]
13.1 Miles and Goal Achieved
At a little after 7:30 am this morning, I started running the Rock the Parkway Half Marathon. Somewhere around mile 9, I thought my body was going to cease to function. Heavy legged, I kept trudging through the miles, desperately wanting to slow down but perhaps more desperately wanting to make that sub-2:00 goal. Let’s be […]
Let Mercy Lead
Tomorrow morning, just under twenty-four hours from right now, I’ll be crossing the starting line of the Rock the Parkway Half Marathon, my second race at that distance. A year ago, when I ran Hospital Hill, I basically just wanted to finish respectably. This year, I will feel that I have dropped the ball–or perhaps […]
Dying to Exercise
A recent article in JAMA Internal Medicine (admittedly not a journal I regularly read) indicated that exercise is good for us. This groundbreaking conclusion actually brought some joy to the hearts of serious runners who have been getting smacked with occasional studies suggesting that excessive exercise increases mortality. This much-larger study found the following decreases in mortality […]
The 6:59 Mile
Roger Bannister, at 85 years of age, is quaking in his British shoes. Yesterday, I ran my first ever sub-seven-minute mile. That is…well, it’s pretty slow by anybody’s standards. Let’s consider. To be in the top 5% of runners at age 25, I’d have to be running my mile in something like 3:54. Of course, […]
