Running with a partner over a long distance always creates interesting opportunities for extended speeches. This is because inevitably one person or the other will get a little tired and need to focus on just keeping a breathing rhythm. When one person isn’t talking, this means the other person must take on the burden of generating interesting commentary in order to keep the conversation moving.
It was during such a run that I invented the notion of ‘the running dynasties’. What this nonsense means is that over the course of my life I could look back and pinpoint extended periods of time when I ran consistently.
As we trotted along the Charles that day, I came up with four such dynasties...
The First Running Dynasty: June 2008 – October 2008
Start reason: Trip to Japan
End reason: Start of basketball season
I think the reason I started talking about these ‘dynasties’ was because the first dynasty started thanks to the friend I was running with that day. A former teammate on my college basketball team, he prophesied in the spring of 2008 that I could be in the best shape of anyone on the team. If I managed to do this, he explained, I could eventually bounce back from my injury plagued sophomore season. I think this was just the encouragement I needed at the time. Up until then, my workout plan for the upcoming year was to work out a way to quit the team.
When I went to Japan that summer for a six-week trip, I focused on developing a running habit. I returned to the US twenty pounds or so lighter and just continued running right up until the start of the basketball season.
The Second Running Dynasty: September 2011 – October 2012
Start reason: Reading Born To Run
End reason: IT band injury
My first year out of college was definitely a ‘lost year’ from a running perspective. I definitely did run, that much I know, but I don't remember enjoying myself all that much while running. I also put on some weight that year so I know I couldn’t have been running all that seriously.
Everything changed when I read Born To Run. The book’s argument compelled me to investigate a new running style and its story inspired me to become the sort of runner who thinks rolling out of bed and running ten miles is a sensible activity. The result was a short, blissful time I look back on now as when I was in the most exuberant running form of my life. The dynasty culminated with what is my best performance to date – a 9.3-mile run completed in just over an hour on a hilly roadside course in the Adirondacks.
In hindsight, it will probably go down in history as my best running performance ever. A week later, my knee assassinated my ambition. This was the start of a long, repeating pattern of self-inflicted running injuries that would mar the rest of the decade.
