How has the last year changed your relationship with running? Heading into 2020, I was excited to run my first 50K in March and to start competing in the masters division in road races after my 40th birthday in May. As is the case for many of us, I haven’t toed a starting line in over 14 months. Yet, during this time of physical distancing, running has provided both a sense of normalcy and an escape, and I have embraced running as adventure during the pandemic. It has been an opportunity to reassess my relationship with myself, my body, and sport.

Last summer, while driving across the country, I had the opportunity to treat running as an experience–something admittedly not easy on mornings after 12+ hour days in the car. I ran at 8500 feet altitude in Mammoth Lakes, California, and with bison at Antelope Island State Park in Utah. After the trip, I continued this approach, seeking out more trails and new routes at home, including spontaneous trips to places such as Pinnacle Mountain in Arkansas. On a dusk run at Shelby Farms trails in Memphis in late July, as I quietly ran up the path alone, I witnessed a bobcat come out of the brush about 20 yards in front of me, not realize I was there for a while and just walk in front of me, until it finally noticed me and disappeared back into the brush as quickly as it appeared. That’s certainly a different kind of running highlight than an age group top 3, but it’s no less memorable. Without training too hard and peaking, I have been able to run a lot to maintain a base, but I haven’t felt the urge to race, even as races have started again with safety protocols in place. I have stuck to something like an 80/20 ratio, with 80% of my runs at easy effort and 20% in a moderate to hard range. So far in 2021, I have picked up almost as much vertical gain as I had in all of 2020.

Going forward, I have some new goals. I still think some of my best road racing times are ahead of me, especially in the half marathon and marathon. And I’ll get back to those, but they aren’t immediate goals. It’s likely that I will be racing again at some point in 2021, probably both on trails and roads. But I have decided I want to focus on trail ultra races for a year or two, both for a different experience and because they seem to be safer during a pandemic due to their smaller scale. Ideally, the 50K for which I registered last year will happen at some point in 2021 (it has been postponed 3 times). Eventually, I want to run a 50-miler or 100K in the next year (maybe I can convince Andrew to run a 100K, too). The physiological adaptations–especially improved mitochondrial density from the longer runs–should help when I shift focus back to a road marathon, an event for which I have had good training blocks and disappointing race efforts. More importantly, I hope to continue to experience the joy that has come from taking my foot off the gas a little on training, putting less pressure on races, and seeking adventure more frequently. At such a tragic time when 515,000 and counting have died from a deadly pandemic, I know I am lucky to be healthy and able to enjoy the physical and mental benefits of running, all while doing it safely in terms of physical distancing.

Gear Insights

For well over a year, I have run nearly all my miles on Hoka One One shoes. In some later newsletter, I will share more about my favorite shoes and shoe rotation, but this week I am looking forward to getting out in the Hoka One One Mach 4. The design seems to be a significant revamp of a previously somewhat uninspiring line to date. The Mach 4 should fit somewhere between the Rincon and Clifton 7 in my rotation. Also, for the first time in a long time, I have run some miles in something other than a Hoka: the Atreyu Running Company base model. I am interested in their subscription model and pricing, and the shoe is comfortable, lightweight, and responsive. If a shoe can be purchased at $55 in their subscription model and be durable enough for over 150 miles, it might have a better miles per dollar ratio than a lot of other shoe options. That could be a metric for how we consider the value of training shoes. Once I hit 50 miles in both the Atreyu and the Mach 4, I will comment on them more in later posts and particularly their durability, since both have rubberized foam outsoles.

Inspiration of the Week

This one goes back a few weeks, but Alexi Pappas on the Rich Roll Podcast was a good listen (or watch). Set aside some time for it if you haven’t already. In addition to being an Atreyu-sponsored runner, Pappas is an English major, writer (Bravey: Chasing Dreams, Befriending Pain, and Other Big Ideas is on my to-read list), filmmaker, actor, and Olympic Runner. In this extended conversation with Roll, her openness about her mother’s death by suicide, her own depression, training, and creativity is full of insights and thought-provoking wisdom for any of us invested in mind and body. This episode was a good follow-up to the Caroline Burckle episode.

Thank you for reading. Andrew and I will be alternating weeks of authoring the newsletter. If you liked what you saw, please subscribe below and share with your friends.

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Newsletter 2: “It’s the Adventure”