A Runner's Wave

I was out for a run yesterday evening, headed west to watch the sunset and I passed another runner headed east who gave me a friendly wave. In passing that runner I was reminded of the camaraderie between runners; the simple wave of acknowledgement as runners pass each other on the running route. A wave that says, "Hi, I hope you have a good run, isn't it a beautiful evening?" A wave that passes on encouragement and motivation to keep pounding away at the miles.

A blog; yes, I have started a blog, at the insistence of one running friend in particular, who asked me at least a half dozen times when I was going to start a running blog. And no, I'm not doing this just to hear myself talk, which is what another friend of mine thinks blogging is. And, I'm sad to say, that I'm sure this blog will not be as eloquent as my sister's, but, it is now an existent blog.

My goal with this blog is to share my running with others who care to read about it and...to keep me on task. Running, to most, is painful; a dreadful memory from grade school gym class or basketball practice where we were 'forced' to run, either for punishment or conditioning. But for me, running is about just that. Running. Listening to my feet hit the ground, absorbing the environment around me and personal time for me to relax and reflect.

Because of life, work and being less then my normally healthy self lately, I took the last four weeks off of running and am getting back into the groove of training. There's quite a bit I want to accomplish this spring:

• run the Groundhogs Day race in Kansas City (Feb)
• run the St Patrick's Day race in Wichita (Mar)
• run the Brew-to-Brew from the Boulevard Brewery in KC to the Freestate Brewery in Lawrence (Apr)
• run the Lincoln Marathon (May)
• run the Rock and Roll San Diego Marathon (Jun)

We shall see how all of it goes and I plan to write about it along the way. I hope to share training accomplishments and struggles, motivational quotes, changes in my training schedule and thoughts from other runners. I'm sure there will be a funny story in there somewhere about me being my typical klutzy self and of course, I will vent my frustrations about the tiniest little pebble that was in my shoe for my entire run because I was too lazy to take it out before I started.

Ciao for now...