\u201cDid you get good grades in college?\u201d my daughter asked. \u201cI don\u2019t mean any offense, but here you are, this accomplished guy. You go to conferences in New York. You win awards. You have a good job. But you did these really dumb things like swam across marshes \u2026 in your running shoes \u2026 without a phone \u2026 without a coach \u2026 with a guy who almost drowned! So, I mean \u2026\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Well, that certainly didn\u2019t go as intended. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I had been trying to explain the joy of running. And more importantly, running long distances. How it\u2019s freeing. And fun. And when you run with really adventurous (stupid) people \u2013 like I did in college \u2013 it becomes an experience you can later tell at the dinner table \u2026 where your daughter will question your IQ. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
She joined the track team at her middle school, and the other day got to run quite a bit down a street to a major road, probably like 20 feet away from school.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cYou did!?!\u201d I said excitedly. \u201cThat\u2019s the best part of running. It\u2019s so \u2018freeing!\u2019 While all the other sports are stuck on school grounds, your whole objective is to run away like a bunch of escaped convicts who just dug a tunnel out of prison. It\u2019s so liberating!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And then I told what I thought would be an inspiring story about a time on my college cross country team when our coach dropped us off at the beach pier. Instead of running back along any of the conventional routes (sidewalk, call for a taxi cab), we decided to run through Anastasia State Park, all the way to the tip \u2026 because we could \u2026 and because we were a bunch of idiots. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
But once we got to the tip, we\nrealized why so many cross country runners die curled up in a forest somewhere muttering,\n\u201cWhy didn\u2019t I just turn left when I saw the sign for town!?!\u201d Because at the\ntip, there is no magical portal to town. No, instead there\u2019s an inlet with\nbreakers, and usually a drunk, weathered fisherman mumbling, \u201cDummies! Now you\nhave to go all the way back!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Only \u2026 no, we don\u2019t. If runners are anything, we\u2019re stubborn and don\u2019t know when we\u2019re bested \u2026 or about to die! So, we rounded the bend, thinking (much like Christopher Columbus) we might find some undiscovered, secret route to India, or Indiana, or wherever the heck he was going. Only, all we found was marshland and swampy shoreline and dune critters pointing and making fun of our pale white legs in short shorts. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
When we found ourselves across the\nwaterway from the lighthouse, we came to the kind of conclusion all runners\nface: drowning or getting run over by a speedboat beats backtracking and facing\ndrunk fishermen. So, we swam across and ran back to school looking like skinny\nswamp monsters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It is one of my favorite running stories, but it landed with a thud: \u201cDid you get good grades in college?\u201d she asked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I like to think something in that story registered. We have started running together, and shared a pretty magical sunset the other night. There\u2019s adventure to be had in those running shoes. And once in a while a magical portal back home \u2026 just make sure to ignore the fishermen and hysterical critters. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u201cDid you get good grades in college?\u201d my daughter asked. \u201cI don\u2019t mean any offense, but here you are, this accomplished guy. You go to conferences in New York. You win awards. You have a good job. But you did these really dumb things like swam across marshes \u2026 in your running shoes \u2026 without a phone \u2026 without a coach \u2026 with a guy who almost drowned! So, I mean \u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
Well, that certainly didn\u2019t go as intended. <\/p>\n
I had been trying to explain the joy of running. And more importantly, running long distances. How it\u2019s freeing. And fun. And when you run with really adventurous (stupid) people \u2013 like I did in college \u2013 it becomes an experience you can later tell at the dinner table \u2026 where your daughter will question your IQ. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[575,561,558,570],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1900","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2019-nutshells","category-family","category-florida","category-running"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1900","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1900"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1900\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1901,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1900\/revisions\/1901"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1900"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1900"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1900"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}