I Get Around

"I Get Around" by The Beach Boys topped the charts when I was a wee bearn.  It was the group’s first number-one hit song in the United States, reaching that mark on July 4^th, 1964.  That song sums up the past four weeks for me.  I’ve been to New Jersey twice and on a road trip to Arizona.

Our family spent our summer vacation in Scottsdale during the first weekend in August, as crazy as it sounds.  The weather was quite pleasant; temperatures in the 90s, low humidity.  On the way to Scottsdale we spent the night in Albuquerque. 

The Rio Grande River slides through Albuquerque like a slow moving cappuccino.  Its turbid brown current carries sediment from Colorado to the Gulf of Mexico.  In the 1970s enlightened and responsible civic leaders built the Paseo del Bosque path which parallels the river.  Sunset Magazine named it one of the best bike paths in the west. 

On Friday morning I ran about 7.5 miles on the path, in addition to the two miles from the hotel I stayed at to the path.  En route to the path I tripped and pulled my left thigh muscle, though not badly enough to keep me from running 9.5 more miles. 

Scottsdale is named after Civil War Union General Winfield Scott, who owned 640 acres in the area that now bears his name.  On Saturday I ran with the Mummy Mountain Runners.  The group meets for a 10-mile long run around their namesake peak at 5:00 am.  I awoke at 4:00 and ran the three miles from my hotel to the meeting point for the run.

On Sunday I met the Bandidos for a 12 mile run along the Arizona Canal.  We started out at 7:30 / mile pace.  They waited three miles to see if I could keep that pace before they engaged me in conversation.  As it turned out, two of them had been in Denver the previous week and commented on how fit the people seemed. 

After discussions of mileage, races and hydration, the conversation turned to the alarming obesity rate in the US.  Most people I run with in different parts of the country have difficulty understanding why people aren’t more active.  The dialog is the same.  This is fun; the camaraderie; the satisfaction of completing something; being a part of a bigger cause; the sense of accomplishment.  Who wouldn’t want to be a part of it?

No product, however beneficial, sells itself.  How else to explain the career of Billy Mays?  No cause, however noble, is self-sustaining.  How else to explain the growing obesity rate in America despite the mounting public policy initiatives?  We put a man on the moon.  Why are we not able to lower the obesity rate?

Last weekend I was in New Jersey and ran with Essex Running Club, Northern New Jersey’s Friendliest Running Club.  Sunday they held their 10 Hill Challenge Run – 10 hills spread over 13 miles.  Over 60 runners met for the 7:00 am run.  As I led the group over the first hill, I introduced myself and said I was visiting from Colorado.  What followed was a discussion about relative effort at altitude versus sea level and whether you gain the time back on the downhill that you lost on the uphill. 

There were many turns on the route and I called out where each was and mentioned streets we would be turning onto later in the run.  After announcing the forth turn someone asked me how I knew the course so well.  I came clean and told them I had grown up there.  The route eventually passed the street I grew up on and I took that opportunity to leave my new friends. 

Meeting new runners as I travel to different parts of the country is such a treat.  Though we have different backgrounds and aspirations, we are all sharing the dream.