Almost Famous

Posted on October 5, 2015 by Jon Waldron

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“The marathon trials are the average runner’s version of the Olympic Games.” Jill Geer, spokeswoman for USATF. Continue reading →

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And Then the Rains Came

Posted on September 30, 2015 by Jon Waldron

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A deluge of thoughts while sitting in a rain-soaked traffic jam on Route 128 North: Continue reading →

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The Clocks that Time Us

Posted on September 28, 2015 by Jon Waldron

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(Paavo Nurmi checks his stopwatch (1928). Image: Wikimedia commons)

It was a fine fall morning, and a pack of us were trotting along at an easy pace along the smooth gravel trails of Battle Road. The chilliness of the early morning had been forgotten, and the weather and the temperature were perfect for enjoying our long run. Had it not been for our easy conversation, our passing would have been attended only by the light, rhythmic sound of our footsteps… that is, until a sudden burst of electronic chirping announced the completion of another mile. A few moments, later, a second chirp answered the first one, confirming our achievement. I can’t lie: one of the GPS watches that broke into our conversation belonged to me, and the other — an identical model — belonged to Gordon. After a few miles, and several more chirps, Kevin called me out on it. “I can’t believe,” he said sadly, “that you’ve gone over to the dark side.” Continue reading →

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The Virtue Trap

Posted on September 25, 2015 by Jon Waldron

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In the field of Behavioral Economics, researchers study how psychological, emotional, and social factors influence economic decisions. Perhaps, in the end, it’s not that surprising to learn that our decisions aren’t the pure product of rational economic calculations only, but are influenced by behavioral patterns and instincts that have evolved over our entire history as a species. The field has yielded some surprising, counter-intuitive insights into how our “emotional” brain can override our supposed rational brain, reflecting what are perhaps hard-wired assumptions about the way we experience the world.

You might be wondering what any of this has to with running, but bear with me for a little longer. Continue reading →

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One Hundred Years of Attitude

Posted on September 23, 2015 by Jon Waldron

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“I need more practice.” – Don Pellman

Perhaps you saw the NY Times article reporting on the record-setting performances of track and field athlete Don Pellman at the San Diego Senior Olympics last week. Pellman, who turned 100 in August, broke five world age-group records in a span of four-and-a-half hours: shot put, high jump, long jump, discus, and 100m. Those jumping records stand alone on the all-time list for his age group because no 100-year-old had ever before recorded a legal long jump or cleared a legal height in the high jump.

His day of triumph wasn’t without obstacles, however, as Pellman failed in his three attempts to clear a legal height in the pole vault. But after that “catastrophe,” as he termed it, Pellman returned to form in the 100, running 26.99, or nearly three seconds faster than the 29.83 that Japan’s Hidekichi Miyazaki had run in 2010. Continue reading →

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Contrafactual

Posted on September 21, 2015 by Jon Waldron

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In an alternate universe, I ran in college. Continue reading →

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Sunday Afternoon Lights

Posted on September 18, 2015 by Jon Waldron
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It was my own fault, I admit it. I shouldn’t have trifled with one of the holy commandments handed down by the church of perpetual mileage that Sundays are for races or for long runs, and not for track workouts. But I had woken up late, feeling too sluggish and out-of-sorts to drag myself to a race, and too lazy to do a long run with people much faster than me. Steeped in indecision and lethargy, I puttered around the house as the morning slipped away.

Continue reading →

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From the Archives: Should You Run When You’re Sick?

Posted on September 16, 2015 by Jon Waldron

[Three weeks into the school year and it seems as though half the students have, or are recovering from, a bad cold. Every campus has its plagues, and ours is no different. 

Although I profess no medical knowledge, all the kids with communicable diseases make it a point to come up to me (oh, so near) before practice to ask whether they should run with sniffles, sore throat, congestion, etc., etc. So this post from 2005 seemed appropriate…] Continue reading →

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What We Remember

Posted on September 14, 2015 by Jon Waldron

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Friday was the fourteenth anniversary of that strange and horrifying day. I was going to re-post something I wrote on the sixth anniversary of the day the planes were hijacked and turned into massively destructive weapons, but at the last moment I decided that I needed to reflect a little bit more on how recollections of that day fourteen years ago still shape the feelings that return every year in early September. Continue reading →

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The Cross Country Paradox

Posted on September 9, 2015 by Jon Waldron

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I don’t have a lot of time to write this morning, what with preparing for the afternoon’s practice and worrying about what makes sense for the sixty kids at my school who have shown up for cross country this fall. Continue reading →

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