Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up. It knows it must run faster than the fastest lion or it will be killed. Every morning a lion wakes up. It knows it must outrun the slowest gazelle or it will starve to death. It doesn’t matter whether you are a lion or a gazelle: when the sun comes up, you’d better be running.

     I just finished a delightful running book, titled "Running with a Police Escort, Tales from the Back of the Pack," by Jill Grunenwald. The author started running 5 years ago and has been a back-of-the-packer since, once coming in last and being escorted by the police car sweeper. She talks about the trials and tribulations of her training and the races she's run. She writes well, starting her career as a librarian in a men's prison.  So of course one of her races was to celebrate the movie "Shawshank Redemption" which was filmed at the Ohio State Reformatory in Mansfield, Ohio, where the race started and ended. She started blogging, then podcasting, and those led to this book.
     Anyhoo, the book made me happy.  It is so nice to hear from others who are out there doing their very best but who will never win a race, and who are just competing against themselves. The last author who wrote for most of us runners in that regard, was John "The Penguin" Bingham, since retired.

   

     
     Yesterday I ran a 10 mile trail race.  It was small, but fun.  Not technical trail, just single track dirt with rolling hills, but we did have to wade through a small stream twice which was interesting and made me feel badass.  I was worried about getting blisters running in wet shoes and socks, but it wasn't a problem. And there was a little food and beer left at the finish line for us slow 10 mile runners....the 10 K people and the 1 mile and .2 mile kids had eaten up most everything and gone home.