I am running the Texas Independence Relay the first weekend of March. It is a 203 mile relay race that starts in Gonzales Texas and finishes at the San Jacinto Monument. I will run it with a team of twelve people most of whom already know one another. I know some of them and have read most of their blogs so I really feel like I kind of know them all even though I’ve only met three of them in person.
It is interesting that the blog world allows me to read what people write on a personal level and I feel like I know some of them better than the people at the other end of the building I work in.
I attended a conference a couple of years ago and there was a blogger’s break-out session. A group of people from all over the country that had read one another’s writing and had carried on multiple conversations over the course of a couple of years met in a room and it felt like everyone knew everyone even though they were meeting for the first time. It was for me a truly strange experience.
I read all of my blogs with a feed reader. So if someone posts something I at least skim it. I read blogs from people all over the country and overseas that have various reasons for blogging – not just running. Sometimes I read something someone has written that is so intensely personal I feel like an intruder in their personal life. But then I think, “They wrote it and put it on the internet for the world to read … I guess it is okay.”
The fifteenth anniversary of my running is coming up in May. In those fifteen years I have mostly been a solitary runner. I am completely comfortable with my own company and running has always been a very personal thing. Our team members were listed on the team captain’s blog and my name was the only one without an affiliation to a running club – and I am cool with that because that is who I am.
Even though I have for the most part been a solitary runner, during the last couple of years I have started running more with others. A couple of years ago I started running with my son Jakeb. Then last year I ran a test event for the Blue Planet Run. There were four of us that ran the night shift 10 miles each. I ran from 2-3:30 am. It was good to run with three other guys and have a common goal. Then last summer I ran one of the 5k legs of the Brazosport Relay Triathlon. Again I found that running with a team towards a common goal elevated my running to a higher level. I ran with a friend occasionally on my morning runs this past summer. I have run long runs with other friends who are training for long races like I was. I still want to run most of my miles alone but I am getting used to running with others too.
All of that to say, I am excited about being a part of a team of people who will take turns running for two consecutive days in order to cover 203 miles and have a blast doing it.
That last post was gross ...
