The Blog Less Traveled

Why the strange title for this blog posting? Today I went for my weekly run. Normally I do about 10-13 miles. Today I ran 15.6 miles. For you metric-challenged folks, 25K = 15.53 miles. There is an annual racing event in the Grand Rapids area called the River Bank Run. Old Kent Bank initially sponsored it but when they were bought out it became the Fifth Third River Bank Run. It is held on the second Saturday in May and starts and finishes in downtown Grand Rapids with the course at times running along the Grand River. There are 5K, 10K and 25K races. The 25K run is billed as the largest in the country.

I’ve never run in a competitive race but thought I’d go ahead and do the official distance for the 25K event. Hence the “virtual” title for this posting. I didn’t run the actual route because it takes you through busy sections of town that would normally be cordoned off during the actual race. I have a GPS watch that accurately tracks my mileage so I ran the distance in my local area. Today’s temperature at the start of my run was 16°. Probably a little chilly for most folks, but I enjoy running at any temperature. It was a great run with plenty of sunshine and the wind was pretty light for most of it. According to my GPS watch, I burned 2153 calories. I guess I can pig out today and not feel guilty! For an old man (I turned 59 three days ago), my body seems to tolerate most things pretty well. For most runners, my pre-run routine is probably pretty strange. I eat a bowl of raisin bran about an hour before I run and that’s it. I don’t hydrate before the run and I don’t hydrate at all during the run. My warm-up is about 30 seconds max and consists of squatting at the knees 4-5 times and bending around my waist for about 10 seconds. That’s it. Like I said, pretty strange.

Anyway, it was a great day and the runner’s high from the endorphin release always feels good.