All posts by John Bingham
August 2006 Same River Twice: There’s an old saying – maybe it’s an adage – no, I think it’s a saying – ANYWAY – whatever it is it says that you can never put your foot in the same river twice. Rivers are alive, flowing, and in constant motion. The river that was there a moment ago is long gone. The same is true for music, art, movies and virtually everything else in our lives. We can never hear the same song twice or see the same piece of art twice. What we bring to a second or third or…
After almost 20 years of writing, first for a small tabloid in Murfreesboro, TN, then 14 years with Runner’s World magazine, and finally for Competitor magazine, I thought I had said all I wanted to say. And, for six years that was true. I posted the occasional old column, but, for the most part I’ve been silent. Well, the itch has started again. So we’ll see.
I’m a 90’s guy. Or at least I was. That all seems so… “20th Century” now. I’m not ready to call myself a “zero” guy, but I’ll bet there are others that might. I’m in touch with my feminine side, I know all about male bounding, and I am way too in touch with my inner child. But, I am just beginning to learn how to be in touch with my inner Penguin. I didn’t even know that there WAS an inner penguin at first. I thought that being a penguin was about being satisfied with what I had, about…
We all have them. Runs when what we want and what we get are so different that we can’t hold it together. Runs when nothing goes right, nothing feels good, and there isn’t a thing we can do about it. I should have known not to expect too much from this one. I hadn’t been able to run on the weekend, so this was a mid-day, mid-week, 12-mile, solo make-up run. To make things worse, it was two loops, never the best solution for me. What made it so ugly? It wasn’t the course. I was running my favorite path…
I’ve always like traveling by car. And, I’ve always subjected my family to my terminal wanderlust. On many an occasion my then young son would moan from the back seat, “Are we there yet” My response was always. “Yep… we’re here”. He would sit up eagerly, and look out the window. Then, with a voice filled with disappointment he would say, “Aw Pop, this isn’t where we’re going” to which I would reply “But this is where we are” He was not a happy traveler. Whenever I started a journey of fitness and better health, including the “diet de jour”,…
October 1996 As I have met and corresponded with new runners, I’ve become convinced that the leading cause of running dropouts is not injury, time constraints, families, or jobs. I believe the reason most folks give up running is because their expectations are completely out of line with reality. Starting a running program is easy. Almost anyone can do it. You don’t need any special skills or talent. All you need is a pair of shoes and a place to run. This simplicity is one of running’s major attractions. The physical benefits are well documented. Even neglected bodies like mine…
Steve Prefontaine, arguably the heart, soul, and spirit of American distance running is quoted as saying, “To give less than your best is to disrespect the gift” On the surface, that wouldn’t seem like a penguin point of view. But it is. And at Hayward Field, on the very track that “Pre” established his dominance over his opponents and his demons, I saw that spirit overcome some of the least suspecting runners. We had come to the university of Oregon for the first annual Penguin Invitational Track meet. I figured, if we’re going to have a track meet, why not…
Unintended consequences can be roughly grouped into three types: * A positive, unexpected benefit * A negative, unexpected detriment occurring in addition to the desired effect * A perverse effect contrary to what was originally intended (when a solution makes a problem worse) It may be hard to believe but getting active – running, walking, bicycling – was filled with unintended consequences for me. And, to be honest, there were positive, negative, and even some perverse effects of starting to live a healthy, active lifestyle. As I’ve written, for me there wasn’t some blinding epiphany. I didn’t have a heart…
If you live where there are 4 real seasons then you already know that there are 4 absolutely must run days of the year. These are the cut school, skip work, and get a sitter for the kids runs. It’s the run in the cool, gentle rain in the summer, the crisp fall morning, the first winter snow. And if you live in Chicago where winter starts before Halloween, the best of those days is the first day in spring when you get to run in shorts. It’s opening day. As a boy, a group of us cut school and…