A Sample Benefit of Running in Races

Ed -

As you can tell from both Bob and my recent posts we haven't been doing a whole lot of running.  Well, I haven't.

Bob ran a marathon a few weeks ago, and that's some serious running.

As for me and my pursuit of the sub-5 mile, I'm in a rest phase for the next two months and not doing a lot.  Three to four days a week of easy to moderately fast paced distance runs, trying to get in something over 25 miles a week.  On non-running days I'm doing my Flamboyant workout along with weight training for both upper body and legs, and kettlebells.  That's a lot of stuff for being "rest" come to think of it, but it's not the high intensity of hills and track work.

Seeing how running 7 or 8 miles in the dark could get boring to describe over and over, I thought I'd write about one of the things I enjoy about racing.  Especially, big road races.

The scenery.

Human scenery.

Runners come in all shapes and sizes, but it just seems to me on race days they all look really good.  I say that with a little bit of leer, but not so much that it's pervy.

For the most part it's just an admiration of human form when it's in healthy shape.  Tone muscles, strong posture, and people's faces tend to reflect it as well in their smiles and eyes.  They just look good.

And fashion plays into it, too.  There are some seriously flattering running clothes on the market.  Of course there's some seriously unflattering stuff, too and guys seem to wear that more often than girls.  One of my sisters would see some guy dressed just horribly and mutter matter of factly, "Single."

I try not to look "single", but don't always succeed.

The sheer number of people at a race is great for a people watcher like me, and I do enjoy gathering of great looking people talking, laughing, running and enjoying a moment in life.

During a Half Marathon I ran in the Outer Banks I linked up after the first mile with a guy from New Jersey.  He was trying to run a 7:30 pace and so was I, so we stuck together.  Having a partner with the same goal pace is really helpful during a run because you take turns encouraging each other at different points.

I found the pic I bought from that race...

 

 

And that's New Jersey next to me.

Well he and I were moving along and about the 6th or 7th mile we came up on a girl wearing those very tight black running short-shorts and a bright green running bra top.  She was in excellent shape (wink, wink, nudge, nudge) and was moving at a pretty good clip.  But not 7:30.

The guy and I didn't say anything to each other and just kept running, but we didn't pass her.  Just trotted along.  Slowly dropping off our pace.

Quietly.

Running along.

After a bit I noticed him look at his watch so I looked at mine.  8:05 pace.

I said, "so what do you think?"

He replied, "how about another quarter mile or so?"

"Sure."

Once we passed her and moved back down to about 7:15 to catch up with our goal he summed it up with, "wow."

"Totally."

Having five sisters did teach me that it's not just us guys "admiring" the other sex.  In fact one of my friends demonstrated that in a previous post when I put up a picture of a guy I know to comment on his freaking strong legs.

She pointed out his ass.

; )

So as a repeat for Karen:

 

So there you have one more, often unspoken, benefit to running.