2000 miles is very far through the snow

One of the places I want to visit on my never ending trip is the Boston Marathon this coming April. Today represents one of the first real steps in my mind towards that as I had my first pain-free run since the first week of October. Though I said yesterday I wouldn't use music as a theme, I can now see that it will bear many parallels on my journey. If the Pretenders song 2000 miles doesn't fit today, none other will.

2000 miles is very far through the snow
I think of you wherever you go
She's gone 2000 miles, it's very far
The snow came falling now
Get's colder day by day...

Coldplay also did a cover of this song too, but credit must go to Chrissie Hynde and her band's 1984 album. I loved hearing her voice when they were in their heyday when I was in college.

As for today's relevance it was my first true snow day of running and had to bundle a bit more as I have not quite toughened up to the winter. I've spent far too much time cross training (or not training) as my leg has been very slow recovering. Today was very positive on many levels. Not feeling the injury and even having a modest amount of spring in the stride given the lack of running and poor footing. I seriously doubt I'll get 2000 miles before Boston (yes, I did the math) but the run totaled over 8 miles -1992 miles to go. They went by faster thanks to running mate, John Wirum.

John is also getting going on his road to Boston after qualifying this past summer with his wife, Polly. I got to know the Wirum's this summer after Polly essentially trapped me and forced me to help coach them. I never expected to have so much fun and have really enjoyed getting to know the Wirum family and friends. It was also great to be able to help people who benefited from my past coaching and marathon experience. Definitely the highlight of what would have been a lost summer given the various maladies I dealt with after running London in April. Seeing the group work so hard and chase their goals was very inspiring to me. It's so rewarding to work with runners that want to be inspired. It also forced me to not be casual about my own achievements and be excited about doing the best I could for whatever I did. Given my health problems I ran several races much slower than in the past but had more fun (in most cases) and was just happy to be able to participate, something I definitely take for granted too often.

I'm thinking of having Polly become my coach. I learned later that in a previous life she had been a nurse in the delivery room and became very good at getting women to push large objects through small openings. She may not know a lot about training for running but she knows the most important thing - it's going to hurt anyway, so push harder and get it over with!

Please check out the most popular man in Ireland this side of Bono, Keith Kelly, if you want to catch up on his hip take on music, East Coast style and running very, very fast. The long-legged Lephhruchan from Drogheda is a former NCAA Cross Country champ for Providence (2001) and from the looks of his blog he is well on his way to being the best expatriate writer from Ireland since James Joyce. He is also the most fervent supporter of Radiohead in the known universe witnessed by his several tattoos. I just got a shout out from him today on his blog plus a promo for Skinny Raven so I'm obligated to add that Keith is also in the early stages of bringing Reebok back to the ranks of relevance in the competitive running market.

Cojelo suave, JC