My Dog Spott Missed Me

Three days in a cold, cold house will do that to a canine, I suppose.  But I can certainly say that he likes me and was quite happy to have me back.  Feels good in these strange and difficult times.

But back to running related things:

Photo from Greg Fredericks. Exactly 26.2 miles on mine, (never worn again!)

1. My PR Marathon was at Penn Relays in 1979. I knew I could easily set my PR so I decided to wear a new sneaker from Nike, appropriately called "The Sting".   My last 6 miles were a slogfest as always and my right foot was uncharacteristically burning.  Not enough for me stop, but enough to slow me a little further and allow about 5 teammates to fly by.  When I finished, I made the mistake of taking off my shoe and discovering a bloody mess contained within.  Without investigating further, we wandered back to the hotel for a shower before the van trip back to State College.  In the shower, a flap of skin and more flopped off the front of my right foot revealing more of my anatomy than I figured was good.  The entire ball of my foot was just a flap with "bloody meat" underneath.  It started to hurt quite a bit, but I put the flap back in place and we went on our way.  Two days later, I awoke in the middle of the night with pain and a red streak to my mid thigh.  Apparently, that's how long it takes Staph and Strep to wander up one's lymphatic vessels.  I hobbled and hopped to Ritenour (Wait an Hour!) Health Center and got some antibiotics.  I never missed any classes and my log states 3, 1, 3, 8, 8 and 8 for my mileage the rest of the week. Today, it would kill me...
2. There are some cool looking maps being put out showing all the running spots in every city.  These are generated by everyone submitting their runs to RunKeeper and are then superimposed on Google Maps.  These Philly Spots are quite familiar in my 4 years there.
3. I have harped on the forefoot vs. rearfoot striking thing many times before. (Don't get me started on mid-foot striking!) Just run the way you run fastest.  Don't monkey with things to that degree. When Alberto Salazar passed the 2 guys running with nearly perfect form*, what did it matter?
4. I once talked about a Junior High Basketball teammate (in the comments on this post) who went on to become the most pure shooter Coach Keady of Purdue ever saw, including Michael Jordan.  When Michael heard that at Coach Keady's retirement speach, the whole ensemble moved from the auditorium to the gym where Curt Clawson did indeed beat MJ in a 3-point shooting contest.  (Michael apparently bet $15,000 on the feat also, and ponied up the cash at the end.) Well, Curt Clawson has now gone up against another foe in a 3-point shooting contest, President Obama!  Curt is running for Congress in Florida.  I may make my first ever political donation to Curt, just for the gonadal fortitude it took to feature an ad against the President during the Super Bowl! Sign the petition to have the President and Curt shoot it out!

The Schuylkill River figures most in Philly Runs.

*Both Greg Fredericks and Craig "Surgin" Virgin have nearly perfect running form, and yet I think Alberto beat them both at the 1980 10,000M Trials.