RUNNING:

Did I mention the runs? A few cynics out there might describe the "runner's high" as that wonderful feeling you get when you stop when it is over--and, I have had quite a few chances to feel that way. As I had told you I am a writer, not an author, engaged in both writing and running not just in the past perfect, I am a "runner" not a "jogger". I am a regular distance runner with the Montgomery County Road Runners' Club, the largest of the US RRC's. Sure we have fun, and we are serious about it.

I am quite often a solitary runner, coursing around nearby lake Needwood, down through my woods along the streams, accompanied only by deer bonding away, kingfishers diving, or the Canada geese who honk at me in passing. This is hardly the "loneliness of the long distance runner." I regularly pin on a number and get lined up at the start of dozens of races each year: 10K's, 15K's, 10 milers, half-marathons, and--of course-- the m,m,m,m,marathon!

Now just what would possess such a masochist to slug it out for 26.2 miles (or 45.2 km, if that seems even the least bit shorter or easier to you?) The marathon is divided in two halves of equal effort: there is a 10K race that follows a 20 mile heavy duty slog during which all your life does not have to flash by you--it can crawl. I have gone the distance now over a dozen times and have yet to fail to finish any race I start--not that I would not have given serious thought to it, in any one of the races, if I could concentrate thought on anything at all other than picking them up and putting them down!

Also check out:

• Marathoning
• 100th Boston
• Run On
• Blind Guide
• Serious Series of 6 & 6
• Running Through the Roof
• Ultra Run