Shawn Pfunder

I screwed up my knee. I’m pretty sure I did it from over training. I ramped up my weekly mileage too much too fast. This, I know from experience, is something that can happen from love affairs.

Can anyone really explain how they can love running? You love sunrises and dirt and being alone among the boulders and trees in the middle of a metropolis before you sit at a meeting and people give you the crazy look when you tell them that you ran nine miles in the hills before you took a cold shower, ate a banana and some oatmeal, and thought about the salt on your skin before you hopped in your car and drove to the office to sit down for a weekly state of the union. It gives you perspective and takes it away. read more…

There’s nothing stopping you from doing whatever it is you want to do. Stop preparing. You’re ready to do it. Just do it.

I’ve been obsessing about this for weeks.

I walked for 15 miles in the middle of the night–in the middle of the desert–with a guy who set out to run 100 miles. I joined him at mile 45. We had a full moon, headlamps, and plenty of pretzels every five mile to keep us company. And he was breaking down, his body had stopped tapping into any of its reserves. His only energy came from whatever food we got into him. We walked and walked and walked and shuffled and walked. read more…

I’m no good at planning ahead. Wait. Let me rephrase that. It’s not that I’m no good at it. The truth is, I’m fantastic at it. What I meant to say is: I don’t like to give people (including myself) the impression that I’m someone who plans ahead.

I’d rather be known as the holy-crap-that-guy-is-crazy-we-never-know-what-he-might-do-next dude.

But, here I am, planning out races for next year. I’m getting excited about stuff that won’t happen until April. This, I guess, also means that I think I’ll still be around in April. How exciting. How optimistic of me.

Tags: races, running