Benefits beyond PR's

Sunday, July 20, 2014 · Mike Davis

Good morning! Hope you are in the midst of a great weekend. Pull up a chair and grab a cup of coffee! This morning hasn't gone as planned as Kathy and I got some much needed sleep instead of getting up to go run the Pease 7K race. Kathy will feel guilty, but I am always thrilled when I get bonus sleep as I don't often sleep as late as I would like. Definitely harder to sleep after turning the corner on 50, so I welcomed this morning. Thankfully yesterday I got a great 5 mile run in here in Dover, which capped off a great week for me, that consisted of: four runs, two strength training workouts and some tennis with my older brother. While my total mileage wasn't nearly as high as it may have been in past years, I am happy that I was out running. My capability to get up over 30 miles a week in the future is not going to be based on a particular goal, but more based on what my hip tells me and I fully intend to listen. As I talked about last week, I am going to find the point my body can run without pain and then happily stay with that distance. Don't get me wrong, I still have some substantial goals, but I am okay with whatever is best for my long term running. Yesterday's run was truly wonderful for me as I set out with no particular plan besides just to run. I really like this particular route in Dover that takes me along some fairly quiet streets and then brings me out on Central Ave where I can run on the sidewalk. As I ran I pretty much made up my mind around each mile point as to what the next my would be direction wise and after coming out of a trail along the river I headed in the direction of our old neighborhood and actually ran by our old house on Taylor road. Definitely felt a little nostalgic but also out of place so I turned around half way up the cul-de-sac before anyone recognized the intruder. Yeah I know, a little dramatic, but it was a bit of a weird feeling. I actually thought more about our old neighbors and good friends, Chris and Alyssa who had moved a couple months before us. It was tough for us to go our separate ways as we had a really great thing living next door to each other. Whether it be hanging on our decks together, going out for desert or just helping each other out in some way, the four of us (6 counting our dogs), really enjoyed our friendships. We will always have the friendship, but our proximity kind of takes away the spontaneity that came with being neighbors. "You can't make old friends". Along those lines of friendship last week I dropped an email to Dave Warrnick who ran in a couple of our training groups last year. We discussed him possibly running with our Reach the Beach team this year but unfortunately he has come down with foot issues and is sidelined for the time being. However that didn't stop me from asking him if he would like to meet up for a cup of coffee (of course) and Dave quickly responded that he would love to. So despite a challenging schedule last week we met at the Dover Starbucks last Thursday evening and sat outside sipping coffee and catching up with each other. Between my job at the base, our NFLR clients and being a husband, I don't seem to have a lot of open time in my schedule but finding time for friends is important to me and the time I spent with Dave was some of the best spent all last week. Dave is roughly my age and we came to know each other through his time in our running group last year and as I have written about many times, the relationship you make through running can often become some of your best relationships. I had last seen Dave in the winter when we did a gait analysis on him and I have to say that he's a down to earth great guy that I enjoy a great deal. The difficult part is how fast a conversation can fly and next thing you know it has been 90 minutes and you know that your wife is waiting on you to figure out dinner. Nevertheless, it was a great 90 minutes of talking about kids, life and other things that helped us to know each other better. We both agreed that we would most certainly like to meet more often and I am thrilled with that. Running has certainly blessed me in more ways than I could ever had imagined beyond the physical benefits. Well, it is time to move along. Have a great Sunday and a super week! God Bless! Mike