The Perks of Being a Distance Runner

The above picture was taken circa 1991, making me 6 years old and rocking my first 5k road race. It also makes my dad about 19 years younger and in his prime for the East Lansing Road Racing Circuit. Apparently I didn’t really run much of that race instead stopping to check out all the cool houses we were running by. Not a great thing to do in a cold Michigan winter…my dad remembers being freezing.

Sadly, this was just the beginning of me running races. I now have done hundreds to thousands more, and they have been both good and bad. And I may complain every once in a while about having to go for a morning run or pouring out 14 miles on a Sunday instead of sleeping in, but there are also some major perks to being a distance runner. Take the Travel Channel for instance.

I love food and cooking shows. If you haven’t noticed, my Will Run For Food idea was based on Man V. Food on the Travel Channel. The Food Network and Top Chef are also two of my favorites.

I was watching something along the lines of best places to pig out in America on Wednesday night when my roommate Krisch walked in. They were at a burger joint. One of the burgers had a nice slice of cream cheese placed on it. It looked divine. Krisch agreed. He agreed so much that he walked not only to 5 Guys (a great burger place in DC) but also the grocery store so that he could grab a slab of cream cheese. He then proceeded to imitate the tv burger as best he could and then made it disappear with ease.

“But what does this have to do with being a runner?” You may ask.

Well it has everything to do with being a runner. Krisch runs at least 80 miles a week, and the boy was craving a burger with cream cheese that night. Yeah he probably added 1500 extra calories into his diet that day, but a runner gets to binge every once in a while. In fact, while he was walking to the door I polished off 16 Chewy Chips Ahoy Cookies…and they were delicious. So if you ever hear me complaining about something to do with running, tell me to go eat a burger and I’ll remember that I can. I probably will eat a REESES instead (yeah, the nickname is about to come back).
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Training went really well last week. I put in 71 miles with some good workouts that were a little on the longer side (1k,2k,3k,1600??) and a 14 mile long run with some tempo stuff worked in there. We’re figuring out my outdoor schedule but it looks like I’m going to be making some trips out to Cali for some fast racing. I can’t wait. As always…LET’S GO!