It’s now 2021, and Emma is a teenager heading into her junior year of high school. I have been both her teacher, and her coach for track and field, and I’m quite happy to say that she is now quite a bit faster than me. When we run together, she pretty much leaves me in the dust within a half mile, a function of her increased ability, and my corresponding decline.

Emma started track her Freshman year during indoor season doing short sprints and throwing shot put. Though she enjoyed the former, she’d be the first to admit that shot was not her event. Then COVID happened, which resulted in the cancellation of Spring track during Spring 2020. During the pandemic summer Emma discovered distance running and cycling, and spent a lot of time training on her own leading into her Sophomore year. She played soccer in the Fall, but unfortunately our indoor track competitive season got cancelled. However, another coach and I decided to run workouts throughout the winter leading up to Spring track. It was during this time that Emma learned that she really loves distance running. She went on to compete in the 800-1600-3200 this past Spring, and just recently made the very difficult decision to give up soccer and switch to Cross Country in the Fall.

Emma and I are exceptionally close, and I’d be proud of her no matter what path she chooses, but for selfish reasons I can’t help but be a little excited that she is doing XC in the Fall. I think the reason I decided to write this is because we have been taking my oldest son on college tours over the past few months (he’s being recruited for track and field, but that’s a story for another time), and this week Emma accompanied us for the first time on a few campus tours. It made me realize that she will be in college in just two short years. It’s quite hard to come to terms with that!

The other day I told Emma that the reason I am most excited that she is doing XC is that it means we can run together for the next two years. I volunteer on occasion with our school XC team, but if she is there it means I can join them more frequently (soccer meant driving all over the place to games since both my son and Emma played). And we are training together this summer, though by “together” it means me just trying to keep her visible in the distance ahead of me…

One of the things I have realized as a parent is that as I have gotten older, my personal goals have often become secondary to supporting the goals of my kids. I haven’t run a marathon in years, and I barely run during track season as I am so busy carrying out my coaching duties that I have little time or energy left to run for myself. But this coming year is shaping up to be a bit different, as helping my daughter achieve her goals means that I might need to start developing some new ones for myself. I’m looking forward to what the coming year will bring!

As a high school teacher, the rearrangement of my life has been dramatic. My school was shut down in mid-March, and we managed to transition to remote teaching over a period of about 48 hours. The process has not been without its challenges. As a 4th year teacher, my classes are pretty well prepped and set to go, but they were not set to be delivered remotely. This has necessitated a monumental amount of effort to convert nearly everything that I do into a format that can be delivered online. My workdays are now longer than they would have been had I still been in the classroom, and the process of transitioning to online teaching has been grueling. That being said, my students have kept me going. They have risen to this challenge in a way that I find truly inspiring – almost every single one of them (80+ students) has continued doing their work diligently, on-time, and well. We are making the best of the situation, and I could be more proud of these kids (especially the seniors, who have seen their final sports seasons and prom eliminated, and a graduation ceremony still uncertain).

Transitioning to remote teaching has been hard, but the bigger change has perhaps been what happens outside of school. Everything else has disappeared. No track practice, no track meets, no soccer games all over New England on the weekends. I’ve had 4-5 straight weekends entirely at home – I can’t remember the last time that happened! Daily walks with my wife have become the routine, and runs to blow off stress at the end of the day have increased my weekly mileage way above where it would typically be at this time of year. And it’s not just me – my wife, and all three of my kids have been running regularly as well. It’s almost become a form of therapy for all of us, including my 10-year old son. Heck, my older son (age 16), who claimed to hate running before all this began, told me he wanted to set a mileage PR and came home the other day having run 8 miles. He’s a sprinter and jumper in track – I was dumbfounded! And my daughter (age 14) has gotten to the point where her daily run is something she looks forward to as an escape from online homework.

I’m not really sure where I’m going with this other than to say times are weird, and I needed to write something down. I’m conflicted in that I miss my students so much, I miss coaching, and it hurts deeply that we lost the Spring track season. But on the other hand I have cherished the time with my family, I have loved watching Spring begin to overtake my neighborhood, and I have loved the feeling of regular physical activity. I feel so fortunate that I have a job that continues to pay me during all of this, and I feel guilty about that at the same time since I know others are struggling. I’m not sure if I’m supposed to feel good or bad about all of this.

I’m going to stop right there because the moment I typed that last line, I realized that that is what I’m trying to articulate. I don’t know how I’m supposed to feel about all of this. I’ll let you know if I figure it out…

One issue that cropped up a bit over a week ago still has me a bit perplexed. I woke up one morning with a sharp pain in my hip. The pain wasn’t there the day before, and to be honest I’d never even felt tightness in my hip region. But it hurt, and it made it difficult to run up any kind of incline/hill for the next week.

The logical answer is that I probably slept on it weird in order to compensate for a lingering shoulder injury suffered when trying to make a diving save in my son’s soccer practice (stupid move for an older guy…). But to just wake up with a pain so bad that even the slightest incline causes trouble? Is this an old guy thing, or do younger people have these issues as well?

Just writing this post has made me realize a theme for the past year or so – I get injured more easily. Part of it must be age, part of it must be that I am less fit than I used to be. In any case, be careful out there, sleeping can be pretty dangerous…

The reasons why I haven’t raced in several years are many – employment change, growing kids with busy lives, new interests, etc. – but primary among them is that I’m older (now 44), and just not as fit as I used to be. Though life has taken me in new and different directions, all of which have been exceedingly positive, the one regret I have is that I have let my fitness go. However, fitness here is a relative thing. I’m not sedentary, and I never really stopped running – I just run a lot less, and as a result have gained some weight back that I shed when I was putting in 30-40 miles per week on a regular basis. As a result, I’m in no condition to even come close to past race performances right now.

Knowing that I can’t compete with my old self has caused me to avoid even trying. A race would only lead to disappointment, and confirmation that I’ve lost much of what I gained through years of regular training. Deep inside I know that this was dumb, and that what I’ve lost can be gained back, but I think I also knew that gaining it back wasn’t realistic in the near-term. Life had just gotten too busy to make running a priority.

Fortunately, my perspective began to change during the last school year. My first two years teaching high school were hard – developing curriculum took an immense amount of time, and I had little free time for anything other than preparing to make it through each day. Last year, however, things changed, in large part due to the fact that my oldest son was a Freshman at my school. He was involved in soccer in the Fall, so I would often run while he was at practice. Then he decided to do indoor track, and I volunteered as an assistant coach. Indoor track at a school without an indoor track means running outside through the dead of a New Hampshire winter, and I got to run a lot with the team. Indoor was followed by outdoor track, but running was less frequent for me since I was often busy helping out the coaches doing timing, working with injured kids, etc. My competitive spark reemerged (watching the boys outdoor track team win states helped!), and I went into this summer with a goal to start training more regularly, and to maybe run a race or two. My son competes in jumps and has been doing the USATF Junior Olympics circuit this summer, so we’ve gone to the track several times and I get some speed work in while he warms up. I try to run most days, sometimes fast, sometimes (mostly?) slow, and it has felt (mostly?) great.

Choosing to race in Maine was a joint decision with my wife, and our ulterior motive was to get my son to run it with us. Though he loves long, triple, and high jump, he hasn’t quite found the love of running that we have, and he has struggled a bit with grit when the going gets tough on the track. Somewhat surprisingly, he agreed to do it, as did my daughter (who will be a Freshman this coming year) – there was no turning back.

I knew going into the race not to expect a PR, or anything close to that. My best time on the 4-mile course was a bit under 26 minutes, and with age has come the wisdom to know that if I even tried to run one mile at sub-7:00 pace I would crash and burn hard. I refocused my goal to beating my time when I ran the race the first time – 30:41. And my secondary goal was to try to beat my son – he’s way fitter than me, but he’d never run a road race before, and 4 miles would be the longest he’d ever run in one stretch. I failed on both accounts.

I will admit to being a little disappointed that I couldn’t beat my old race time. However, I came within 30 seconds of my tertiary goal (32:00), and with carrying some extra body weight on a hot day that’s not too bad. I also know that regaining fitness is a long process, and that there are no quick fixes – just a lot of hard work to get back to where I want to be. I’ve come to think of my race history as just that – history. I have my 30’s PRs, and now it’s time to work on my 40’s PRs. I don’t know that I’ll ever beat any of my old times, but that’s OK. I’ve been away from racing for long enough that the gap has cleaned the slate a bit. It’s time to move forward.

On a final note, I have to say that the best part of finally racing again is that I did it with my family. I honestly can’t remember the last time my wife ran a race, but she completed it respectably as well. My son, who has struggled with cramping when trying to run distance, had a no-cramp day and smashed his expectations (and his old-man’s time) by going just under 30 minutes. He was quite shocked by his performance, though I’m still not sure I’ve hooked him on running yet. And my daughter, who I wrote about a long time ago in one of my personal favorite posts, finished her first road race (and longest ever run) well under her goal of 40 minutes. My pride as a parent and husband made it far easier to swallow any individual hurt pride that I might have had.

I’ll end with a piece of advice – if you haven’t raced in a long time because you are scared of not living up to past performances, sign up for a race now. Give yourself a realistic goal and go for it, and talk someone into running it with you if you can. I’m glad I did.

My life for the past 12 months or so has been almost completely consumed by my first year as a high school biology teacher (with the remainder of my time mostly allotted to being a soccer dad). Though I love my new job, I’ve never worked so hard in my life (thank a teacher, please, it’s an incredibly demanding, yet incredibly rewarding job!), and all secondary pursuits necessarily took a back seat. Among those activities that took a hit was my running.

Since last summer, there have been many weeks were my mileage total was a big, fat zero. At first it was hard to come to terms with the fact that I wasn’t running much, but eventually I realized that I just needed to let go. I’d been a first year teacher before (at the college level), and I knew that things would get easier in subsequent years. The hiatus from my hobbies would be temporary, but necessary.

My approach could be summarized by the following:

1. Stop stressing about not running.

2. Run when I had the time, but always prioritize family time, grading, and prepping for school. Keep work stress manageable (top priority!), and use running as a release when possible.

3. Ignore pace and mileage. The slow, 2 mile run became a staple. Walking was employed frequently  – Northwood, NH is crazy hilly!

4. Take advantage of vacations and snow days – I ran a lot over school vacations, and snowshoeing on snow days (we had 5 this year…) was an opportunistic alternative to running.

What I discovered was that the break was a net positive. Sure I gained some weight (there will be no sub-20 5k’s for me for awhile…), but my fitness took less of a hit than I expected. For example, I celebrated the end of the school year by running over 20 miles in 36 hours at the Rock Lobster Relay in Maine (great relay, and some beautiful scenery on Mt. Desert Island!). My training for this was minimal – I hadn’t run 20 miles in a week since the previous summer – but my residual fitness, maintained in some form by the smattering of runs completed during the school year, was enough to get me through without any trouble. In fact, I managed to keep my total average pace under 9:00/mile, which I did not expect. The human body is pretty amazing, and the benefits gained from running are long-lasting.

Now, half-way through the summer, I feel like I’m clawing my fitness back. I ran 25 miles last week, and hopefully will get in a 30 mile week before school starts back up. I plan to run a half marathon this Fall, and get back to reviewing some shoes (on a smaller scale than in the past). I’ve come to realize that the extended hiatus has reignited my passion, and allowed me to develop a new relationship with the sport that I love. I’m excited to get back at it!

Teaching

In August 2015 I returned to the classroom, this time as an intern at Bedford High School in New Hampshire. I had enrolled in the teacher certification program at the Upper Valley Educators Institute, and for the past 4+ months I have essentially been living the life of a high school biology teacher (and chauffeur to my children after school…).

After some initial apprehension about making this career change, I have come to love what I am doing. Being a teacher is my true calling – it’s what I loved about my old job as a college professor, and it’s what I want to do for the remainder of my career. Teaching fulfills me in a way that being a full time blogger did not, and it has been a very positive change.

I’ve also gained a great deal of respect for those who choose to pursue service in elementary/secondary education. Teaching is hard work, and I’ve come to realize that teaching high school is very different than teaching at the college level. My days are busy from beginning to end with planning and classroom instruction (vs. one or two lectures/labs per day as a college prof), classroom management has been a learning experience and is something that I am just starting to get the hang of, and approaches to instruction at the secondary level are very different (no 75 minute lectures to an audience of 100+ students). I’m glad I decided on the intern path rather than pursuing alternative certification as I don’t think teaching college kids is adequate preparation for all of the things you encounter in a high school (something I should write about at some point).

Next week I switch schools to gain experience in a different environment, and in a few months I’ll start applying for teaching jobs with a goal of being employed by a school in the Fall. It’s been a wild ride, but I’ve grown a lot in the process, and I’m really excited about the future.

Blogging

One of the positive aspects of my career change is that I’ve come to enjoy writing/blogging again. I no longer feel compelled to write simply to put stuff out there, and I no longer feel like a slave to my stats, clicks, earnings, etc. I write what I want, when I want, and if a week or two goes by without writing a post that’s fine (time is limited these days!). It feels great to be freed from the bondage of my analytics and my inbox (I’ve gotten really bad at responding to email, something I need to work on…).

I’m fortunate to have a great contributor in David Henry, and he’s been fantastic at filling in on the trail side of things. I credit him with helping me keep this site alive while I’m back in school (never thought I’d be a student again!). (On a side note, I’m always open to guest reviews/posts if you like to write, though I’ll admit to being a slow editor these days).

Heading into 2016, I have every intention of keeping this site going strong. I’ve received a bunch of shoes to review in the past few weeks (too many…), and as long as I have the time I’ll continue to write about running. I just need to avoid nasty dogs on the trail…

Running

I’ll use the mention of nasty dogs as a way to segue into my running.

In 2015 I re-developed a healthy relationship with my running. I stopped obsessing about mileage, pace, etc. (notice a theme here?), and just went out and ran however much I felt like running on a given day. I’ve gotten comfortable with ditching the GPS on occasion. I didn’t race much in 2015, but did a few 10-milers and had fun. My fitness wasn’t where it has been in previous years, but I’ve run enough to maintain a baseline that I should be able to ramp back up without too much trouble, and was in the process of doing just that when I was bitten by a German Shepard while on a run on Christmas day. Being sidelined for almost 2 weeks (had stitches in my leg) just as I was ramping my mileage back up was hard.

I’m now fully recovered from the dog bite – stitches are out, and I’m on track to log about 20 miles this week. I haven’t scheduled any solo races for 2016 yet, but I’m running Ragnar Cape Cod in May with a team from my kids’ school – volunteered to be the top mileage runner on the team with about 21 miles spread over the course of the relay. I’ve thought a bit about a return to the marathon, but I’ll need to see how much time I have to devote to training over the coming months as I finish up my certification and start applying for teaching jobs.

For now I just plan to slowly build up my running mileage, and work on shedding a few pounds that have accumulated over the past year. I’m excited about the challenge of building my fitness back up in 2016!

I’ve been running on the trails behind my house for around 8 years. It’s a short trail network along the Merrimack River, and it’s a favorite spot for dog walkers and families. I’ve grown accustomed to dogs being off-leash over the years, and I often run with my own dog (a black lab named Jack) on these trails. Until last week, I’ve never had an issue with a dog causing trouble. Most are content to give a sniff and go on their way. Some will chase Jack and play for a bit. None have ever be threatening to me or Jack.

On Christmas Day 2015 I decided to head out for a 4 mile run to help burn off the endless supply of cookies that enters my home around this time every year. I headed out along my usual route, piecing together stretches of road and some short trails. There is one trail loop, only about 1/3 of a mile long, that I frequently add on to pad distance. It was on this loop that my incident occurred.

I was running along the trail and noticed a couple walking in front of me with their dog. an older looking German Shepherd. The dog was off-leash, but I didn’t think anything of it. I’ve passed by people walking dogs off-leash there countless times, and have never had a problem.

My usual practice is to try and make some noise as I approach walkers. This is more for their safety than mine – I often startle people when I pass them from behind and they don’t hear me coming. I scuffed the leaves on the ground, cleared my throat loudly a few times, but they didn’t seem to notice. Perhaps I should have been more deliberate in letting them know I was there.

I passed the couple on the left, and then passed by their dog. The next few moments are a bit hazy in my memory, probably because I was shocked by what happened. The dog apparently bolted at me from behind (chase instinct I suppose), and latched its jaws around my right thigh, just above the knee. I think the owners shouted at the dog, and it came back to them. Thankfully the damage was limited to a single bite.

I looked down at my leg and saw blood streaming down my calf and into my shoe. Oddly, my first thought was to shut off my Garmin (2 miles exactly!). My second thought was “Damn, how am I going to finish my run?” Only then did it register that blood was really gushing down my leg, I had a one-inch-long hole in the skin above my inner knee, and another gash on the back of my thigh.

I somewhat regret my next reaction, which was to start cursing the owners profusely and loudly. I’m not generally a confrontational person, but I was pissed, and in the heat of the moment my temper got the better of me. I yelled at them for having the dog off-leash given that it was willing to attack like that. They apologized profusely and the woman gave me some tissues to soak up the blood. For some reason the guy put his hand on my cut and pulled it away, covered in blood. I still feel bad about my reaction, though I suppose in the moment it was understandable.

Lots of blood!

After calming down a bit, I asked if they had a phone so I could call my wife to pick me up. After she arrived, they gave me their contact information and told me they would meet me at the ER. Given that I could see fat poking out through the wounds, I suspected that stitches were going to be needed. I wasn’t really sure what else to do – call the police? Call my insurance company? We decided to just head over to the ER and figure it out there.

The hospital ER was more crowded than I anticipated it would be on Christmas. Several people were there for knife cuts (carving injuries?), and one woman came in with a laceration from a broken wine glass. My wife called the police, and they told us that we definitely needed to file a report. They sent an officer over, and she listened to my story and collected my info. She then contacted the dog owners, who showed up shortly afterward.

The officer confirmed that the dog was up to date on its rabies shot, a fact that the nurse would later tell me was the best thing that happened for me that day (apparently rabies shots are not at all fun…). She told us that the owners would be fined, and that the fines would increase if another incident with the same dog occurred in the future (not sure how many offenses are allowed in my town…). I feel it’s important to report incidents like this both to help deter recurrences, and to protect others who might be attacked by a dangerous dog (I kept thinking “What if I don’t call the cops and this dog winds up biting a kid next? A kid whose face is at the height of my thigh…”).

Gash on inner thigh, and you can just make out the other on the back of the thigh. Both all the way through the skin into the fat.

After the officer left, the dog owners reported that they had called their insurance company and filed a claim to cover my medical bills. They were very cooperative, and were obviously upset about what had happened. For that I give them credit.

The thing that really bothered me was that in the course of our conversation they told me their dog “doesn’t like people,” and that they had chosen that trail because they never see any people on it. Never mind that I run that trail all the time, and often see families walking on it, but the idea that a dog that doesn’t like people is allowed to walk off-leash in a public area really angers me. If you know that your dog has issues with people, it should never be off-leash.

I waited about 2 hours to be seen, and once I was taken in things moved along pretty quickly. The doc rinsed the wounds out with saline (made quite a mess!), and I wound up with two stitches in each gash (see photo below). She told me that I couldn’t run again until I got the stitches removed, which would be about 10 days (this was probably the worst part about the whole experience!). I also received a prescription for an antibiotic to ward off any infections that might be caused by bacteria in the dog’s mouth.

Two stitches in each bite wound, and a rainbow of colors on my leg.

I’m now 4 days out from the bite, and although the skin on my leg is turing all kinds of lovely colors, I seem to have avoided infection so far, and the wounds are starting to heal. I’m in the process of trying to sort out insurance coverage so I don’t have to pay the medical bills, and I’ll update if anything odd happens with that.

It seems like the typical pattern that whenever I start to get my running mojo flowing, something happens to derail it. I was on target for my highest mileage week in quite awhile when this happened, so the unexpected break came at an inopportune time. On the plus side the damage could have been much worse, so there’s that, and I’m hopeful that I’ll be able to run again sometime next week.

Based on my experience, if I have any pieces of advice for runners who frequently encounter dogs on their runs, they would be:

1. If you are approaching a dog from behind, be deliberate and make the owners (and the dog I suppose) aware that you are coming. My guess is that they would have leashed the dog had they known I was there. I suppose it’s also possible that the dog would not have charged if it had noticed me prior to passing by.

2. Everything happened so fast that I don’t think having mace or another animal deterrent would have done much good. I suppose if I had been approaching from the front and a growling dog was charging at me I might have been able to react, but not sure on that.

3. Do report any biting incident to the police, no matter how minor (unless maybe it’s a puppy nip kind of thing). Keep in mind that the next bite could be more serious, and the victim could be a child. Dog attacks need to be documented, and owners should be held responsible. For example, we have a vicious dog on our street – it bit a neighbor and the dog is now confined to the house. I think it took a threat from the owner’s insurance company that their insurance would be revoked to actually result in a change in behavior. That being said, I’m still nervous whenever I pass the house and the dog is leaping at the inside of their screen door.

4. Get the owners to pay your medical bills. You should not have to pay for damage done by an uncontrolled pet. Get the owner’s name, address, phone number if an incident happens. Suggest that they call their insurance company, and call your own insurance as well. Involve the police. As I said above, I’m still working through this with my insurance company, but I’m hopeful that the bills will all be covered.

5. Don’t let the actions of one bad dog (or bad owners) ruin your opinion of the animals. I’m a dog lover, and will continue to run on those trails, even though off-leash dogs are normal there. I will probably be more careful, particularly when approaching from behind, but I know that the vast majority of dogs that I see are harmless and would rather run along with me than chew on my leg.

6. Be a responsible dog owner. I’m not really opposed to allowing a well-trained, obedient dog off-leash if an area allows it, but it’s a matter of knowing your animal. If you know that your dog dislikes people, has a history of being aggressive towards people or other dogs, or does not respond to verbal commands, it should never be off leash in a public place.  A poorly trained or aggressive dog can do some serious damage, and that damage could result in a very expensive series of medical bills that you may be responsible for (as well as hefty fines).

If you have any stories of your own to share, feel free to leave a comment. In particular, any helpful advice on how to deal with a dog encounter would be much appreciated!

Anyway, my wife ran Reach the Beach last weekend with a team of teachers and parents from my kid’s school. She’s not typically a competitive runner, but she managed 17 miles during the relay, and when she got home she said a group of them were planning to run a 10 mile race in my home town in October. She was looking forward to going back to her zen-like 3-5 mile runs, but was torn since she had gained a lot of fitness and wanted to keep that going as well. I was rather shocked when she proposed that I run the 10-miler with her, and given that this would be her longest ever race, I couldn’t say no (despite my current absence of distance training…).

Five miles is pretty much my long run right now, but as the temperature has cooled with the arrival of Fall, my pace has been picking up (been using my GPS a bit lately since I’m running in a lot of unfamiliar areas). I figure I could get up to 10 miles easy enough in a month, so I’m going for it. As I anticipated she would, my wife returns from almost every run she does and claims she’s dropping out of the race, but I simply tell her she committed me to doing it and she’s not getting out of it now. Add in a bit of pressure from one of her RTB teammates and I’m hopeful we’ll both be at the starting line.

My secret goal in all of this is to get her hooked enough to run the Disney Princess Half Marathon with me sometime. We’re usually in Disney the week of that race every year, and I’ve long wanted to participate (my Y chromosome precludes me from doing it by myself). I’m not holding my breath – winter is coming – but a guy can dream right???

The reason for the change in approach is that I knew this year was going to be one of transition. As I’ve shared in a few recent posts, I’m heading back into the classroom, and have started a teacher certification program for high school biology. I spent last week at the high school where I am interning, and I taught my first lesson on Friday (nothing like jumping right in!). I decided to push running to the side for the week so that I could focus on the new experience. In years past, six straight days without a run would have driven me crazy, but I’m in a place now where I’m OK with it. No need to stress out about a few missed runs.

For much of this summer I’ve been trying to wrestle myself into a healthier relationship with my running since I knew things would be challenging come Fall. One of the first steps I took back in July was to start running more frequently without my GPS watch. Like many runners, my GPS had become an extension of my running identity, and a permanent fixture on my wrist. I obsessed about pace, and would feel guilty if I didn’t live up to what I felt I was capable of – can’t have a Strava report with a 10:00+ mile pace for a run! I obsessed about mileage – always need to add a bit to get to the nearest whole number, that 4.97 mile run just won’t do! I felt the need to reach weekly mileage goals, and heat and hills were no excuse for a slow-paced run.

Since I don’t have a Fall race planned this year, I thought it might be a good time to try ditching the GPS for a bit. I’m not gonna lie, those first few runs without the watch were tough. I seem to think that if a run isn’t recorded, it never really happened. Silly, I know.

To ease the transition away from the GPS, I decided to allow myself to use a heart rate monitor to gauge effort (displayed on a Garmin Vivofit – no GPS recording). The purpose was more to hold me back than to push me harder. I quickly came to realize that in the heat of summer (I tend to run in late afternoon), what I felt was my easy pace would have my heart rate way above the aerobic zone. So I started to allow myself to walk a bit if my HR went above 150 or 160 bpm (depending on how hot it was outside). Coming to terms with walking frequently during hot runs was also a challenge, but it has made for a much more enjoyable summer of running. And on cooler days I’ve found that it really hasn’t hurt my fitness very much.

As the runs without a GPS started to accumulate, I found that I was really liking the fact that I had cut the cord. I no longer felt the need to add on a bit at the end of the run to reach a whole number – though I generally had an idea of how far I’d run, the tenths and hundredths of a mile were impossible to estimate. It simply didn’t matter. And pacing was a total mystery – I just ran by how I felt on a given day. I have no idea what my pace was for most of my runs since mid-July. This bothered me a bit (a lot, really) at first, but after a tough, hilly 4-mile run in Maine in mid-August where I brought the GPS back I was comforted that my fitness hadn’t been destroyed by a lack of GPS recordings.

Running without a GPS has been an incredibly freeing experience. I feel like I am now enjoying my runs a lot more. I don’t feel guilty if I stop to take a photo or enjoy a view – that short break won’t mess up my pace report or GPS track, and no need to fiddle with stopping or starting a watch (heaven forbid I forget to restart the GPS!). There are times when I still find the watch to be helpful – for example, measuring out a route in a new place, after which it is no longer needed. And if I were training for a race there are times when I think knowing pace is important. But without any major race goals in the foreseeable future, I think I’ll continue to run mostly without the watch.

How about you, have you tried cutting the cord and running without a GPS?

With regard to my writing, I’ve been able to keep more standard posts like shoe reviews and science analysis going because I have a formula for writing them – the template exists, and I just need to fill out the parts. However, writing somewhat formulaic posts can get tiresome at times, and I miss being able to just sit down and dump my brain onto the page. I think yesterday’s post opened up the floodgates a bit, and it feels amazing to be writing this post because I want to rather than because I have to.

Over the past year or so I’ve reflected a lot on my experiences as a blogger and runner. I’ve thought about what I like about each, and what I dislike. At times I’ve considered quitting both, or conversely attempting to take things to a new and higher level. In this post I want to start the process of writing about some of these more philosophical topics by sharing one of my conclusions: the best part about both blogging and running is the people you meet and experiences you share along the way.

When I think back over the past 8 years since I started running, the things that I remember most clearly are the races I have run. There’s an element of personal achievement that makes such experiences memorable (a topic for another day), but the things I recall most fondly are the people I have met on those days. The runners I have shared difficult miles with in marathons. The people I shared a van with during Ragnar Florida Keys. The people I ran with at the Hat Run 50K. Fellow crew members and pacers at the VT 100. Fellow runners suffering through the Endurathon at Craftsbury. Runners I have helped complete their first 5K.

The experiences I have had with fellow runners are what make this sport so special. We’ve shared the slog of running long, hard miles in training, and we’ve run, and sometimes hobbled, together on race day. Sometimes we’ve shared triumphant moments at the finish line, sometimes we’ve struggled just to get there, but it’s those shared experiences that stay with you.

In a similar manner, the joy of blogging comes from the people you meet through your writing. The people that send along kind words in an email, or the thanks you get for helping someone out with a tough decision. It’s the comments and support you get when you share something difficult. Yesterday was a perfect example of the latter – it wasn’t easy for me to open up on what I’ve been through over the last year, but the countless messages of support, both public and private, mean more than you could ever know.

The thing about blogging is that it’s so easy to fall into the trap of letting marketers and PR firms dictate what you write (again, a topic for another day) – the lure of attention and advertising dollars can be tough to fight. Sometimes you need to wrench control back and make things your own so that the words can flow. I enjoy writing shoe reviews, but I’ve realized that the best interactions I get are when I share something personal. That’s what creates connections. That’s when both reader and writer benefit. That’s when people who have shared similar, and sometimes difficult, experiences in life connect with you in a way that would never happen as a result of a product review. Yes, you need to do the latter to make a living doing this job, but only doing that is no way to live.

I think most runners would agree that connections made with other people are the best part of the sport, but I think a lot of bloggers forget that, particularly as their sites grow. It’s something I need to constantly remind myself of, and if you are a blogger I’d encourage you to consider it as well. Write for your audience, and keep them first – after all, readers are what keep sites alive. Without them, there would be no advertising income, no opportunities to try out gear. And when you let readers know a bit about you as a person, that makes people connect with you and trust your opinions more than if you become a shill for marketers.

Whether you are a runner, a writer, or a running writer, remember to cherish and cultivate the connections you make with other people. Be there for them, support them, and they will be there for you. That’s what life is all about.

I left my job as a college professor to become a full-time blogger in May of 2013. For the first year and a half or so, blogging life was pure joy. I loved the freedom of being my own boss – I had complete control over my schedule, what I wrote about, and so on. I had turned my hobby into my job, and things were going very well. I had replaced my professor salary (and then some), site traffic was growing nicely, and I was running as much as I ever had. Sounds like a perfect life, right?

Things started to change early last summer. One of my personality traits is that I am a perfectionist. I feel a need to excel at anything I do, whether it be school, work, running, etc., and I push myself to the limit to achieve success in each of these endeavors. This internal drive started taking over my approach to blogging, and things started to spiral out of control. This blog started taking over my life.

There’s something to be said for hard work, but when work takes over your life it can become toxic. I felt compelled to write 4-5 blog posts per week, and I was spending much of my Sunday morning putting together weekly roundup posts. I spent ridiculous amounts of time managing advertising, attending to my Facebook and Twitter accounts, and responding to comments. And don’t even get me started on email. Add in side projects like my work in the gait clinic, coaching, and some web design projects, and the end result was pretty much inevitable.

By last summer, it had gotten to the point where there was really no dividing line between my work life and my non-work life. My wife would have to pull me from the computer to come to dinner, and I’d spend both my mornings and evenings on the iPad sifting through my various social media feeds. I worked while on vacation, listened to podcasts about work while I ran, and when I wasn’t able to work I stressed about it. It was all-consuming, and it was extremely unhealthy.

On top of working, I was also running myself into the ground. I had decided to try to run the Vermont 50K in the Fall, and this necessitated running a lot of miles in the heat of summer, and I don’t handle summer running particularly well. There were a few times when I think I nearly ran myself into heat exhaustion. I’ve alluded to this a few times in previous posts, but I’m pretty sure I had crossed the line into overtraining.

The combination of overwork and overtraining heaped an enormous amount of stress onto both my mind and my body, and cracks started to form last July. The cracks widened over the next few months until I pretty much shattered. I simply couldn’t take it anymore. I was anxious, depressed, unhappy, and something needed to change or things were going to get really ugly.

Around this time, my sister sent me a link to an article about blogger burnout. Turns out this is not an uncommon phenomenon, and I could relate to a lot of the issues discussed in the piece, particularly the following passage:

“A passion turns into a hobby, which becomes a full-time career. And in some predictable period of time it consumes your life and sucks the joy out of it.”

I started running as a way to get healthy. It turned into a passion, and I started this blog as a hobby to write about that passion. I never expected this site to grow the way it did, and it was never my intention at the outset for it to ultimately become a job. But it did become my job, and it turns out that feeling like I had to run because I needed to do so for work sucked a lot of the joy out of it. It’s like the book you had to read for high school English class vs. the book you picked up yourself because it looked interesting. Both might be great pieces of literature, but I always preferred the book I chose myself.

As the joy of running began to dissipate, so did the joy in writing about running. And by Fall I really didn’t want to do either any more. I had come to resent both running and writing. I neglected my email and social media, skipped the Fall race, and pretty much shut myself down to the bare minimum needed to keep things going. Turns out I’m a pretty awful boss when I’m the only employee.

As mentioned, I largely credit my wife with keeping me from pulling the plug entirely and checking out. She’s the spiritual one in this relationship, and she kept telling me that things happen for a reason. That we face challenges in life so that we can grow as a result. And she’s right.

Taking on this blog full-time allowed me to escape another job that I had started to resent. I loved being a teacher, but there were a lot of aspects to working in the field of higher education that had started to wear on me. I wasn’t crazy about research, the lack of credit given to quality teaching always bothered me, and higher ed was (and is) becoming more and more of a business where the bottom line is all that matters. And don’t get me started about the adjunctification (is that a word?) of the college/university workforce.

Becoming a full-time blogger led me on a new path, but somewhere inside I knew this wasn’t going to be my job for the rest of my life. Aside from just the work/life balance issues, I realized that I don’t like working from home (it’s incredibly hard during the summer when kids are out of school!), that I miss social interaction with colleagues, and that as a 40 year old there’s no certainty that I’ll be able to continue running for another 25 years (I’ve avoided the injury bug so far, but the risk is always there and is a constant worry). With my wife’s support, I decided that this blog needed to go back to being a hobby, and I needed to return to the non-blogging workforce.

Once I came to terms with this new direction, sometime around last Christmas, the cracks in my life started to heal. I’d learned a lot about myself in the process, and I think I emerged as a much better person. I realized how my perfectionism was controlling my life, and I took to heart advice to just be “good enough.” I refocused my energies on spending time with my wife and kids. I started running more, and doing so without any particular plan other than to enjoy putting one foot in front of the other (I had gotten pretty out of shape, and am still clawing my fitness back). I started to enjoy writing again, but no longer felt compelled to publish every day – that pace was simply unsustainable. And I re-connected with my social media accounts (mostly Facebook these days) and email since interactions with friends I have made through this site are the most valuable thing that has come out of it.

This post has been a long time in the making, and I wasn’t sure I was ever going to write it. But I think it’s worthwhile since it seems that the burnout I experienced is not uncommon among those who decide to give blogging full-time a try. I’m happy to say I made it through and am in a better place as a result, but I’ve also realized that I want this site to go back to being a hobby and my running to go back to being a passion.

For that reason, I’ve decided to head back to the classroom, and in three weeks I’ll be starting a program to get certified to teach high school biology. I have no strong desire to return to higher ed, and I want to focus on the aspect of being a college professor that I liked best: working with students in a classroom. I have every intention of continuing to run and write, in fact this site is what is allowing me to go through a certification program rather than trying to jump right in with an alternative certification. I want to learn more about the art of teaching, and you get very little of that in prep for teaching at the college level. But both my running and writing will be at a pace that is more manageable, and I hope to write more about my coming transition.

If I had one piece of advice for anyone thinking about taking on blogging full-time, it would be to set very firm boundaries between your work and your life. Don’t let your work become your life. It sounds easy, but it’s the biggest challenge I have faced since embarking on this journey. You don’t have to be perfect, you just have to be good enough.

Thanks so much for reading this somewhat long and rambling post. Readers are what keep me going – I truly appreciate your support!

Yesterday I went for a seven mile run. Nothing too special about that, but it was the first really hot day we’ve had this year in New Hampshire. The temperature was 89 degrees Fahrenheit when I checked after the run, and it was fairly humid. After a frigidly cold winter, my northern blood was definitely unprepared for a run in these conditions.

To top things off, I didn’t bring any water. “It’s only seven miles”, I told myself. I ran eight just a few days before and had no issues.

The splits in the table at the top of the post tell the tale of this one. I went out easy for mile one, then settled into my comfortable pace by mile three. That’s about when things started to fall apart. My legs were dead, and the heat radiating up from the asphalt was getting to me. I started feeling lightheaded. It was time to walk for a bit.

The second half of the run was a walk-run slog. At times I could barely manage two minutes of running before I needed a walk break. I briefly thought about calling my wife to come pick me up. It was truly ugly.

When I got home I had goosebumps all over my skin, and my mouth way sticky and dry. My kids were in the yard splashing around in the kiddie pool – they’re much smarter than me (and I wound up in there with them after some water and a bit of recovery)!

In checking the my activity feed on Strava, I saw a few others who had similar issues to me. I saw one run posted with splits that were almost identical to mine – a dramatic slowdown in the second half of a run. Yet others seemed to handle the heat ok. I’ve always wondered if I’m particularly sensitive to heat for some reason. It seems to take me a long time to acclimate, and I always seem to have a run like this in the Spring where I feel like dying.

Some year maybe I’ll ease into Spring/Summer heat with short runs where I carry cold water. That would be the wise approach. Maybe next year I’ll get it right? Or maybe I’ll just be writing this post again next Spring. If nothing else, I hope this helps you to be smarter than me – respect the heat!