"What exactly is up with you? What do you hope to prove? Accomplish?
Isn't cycling enough to satisfy you?"
Oh, you may ask any number of probing (or accusing) questions, but I'll give you the same reply: "What we do for love."
2020 was to be my (likely) final season of occasional purposeful running. Son Dr. Pat asked me to run the Big Sur Marathon with him. Like every other race beginning that March, the BSIM was postponed, rescheduled, and ultimately cancelled. And not brought back in 2021. When we were offered spots for 2022, before open registration, we conferred and decided we'd try again.
So here we are again, beginning winter training for an April marathon. BSIM is the only marathon I have run (twice officially, and in 2020 solo and flatly on the Illinois Prairie Path); it is the only marathon I am interested in running. And--unless son Andrew asks me to run with him, this will be my final time. (Note to son Andrew: probably should do this soon if at all! Lucky for me, Andrew is not currently a runner.)
Pat and I managed a 3-day bike camping trip in the summer. (About which, more anon in this series.) Now with him no longer in Chicago, our shared long runs will be harder to work out. But we'll figure that out.
Meanwhile, for all my preference for the bike--and with a banner year for outdoor miles under my spandex--there's no denying that I do actually like running, I'm actually pretty good at it, and God willing I will record another BSIM at 66 years of age. Then it's back to racking up the road and trail miles, and entering my "golden years" intending to get in more miles each year.
This is as good a time as any to relaunch "Awesome Adventures" to track the various adventures that await in 2022: running, cycling, travel, and the greatest adventure of my life--marriage to Karen.
