I’m nothing if not persistent. Seems to me that two of the things that set human beings apart are our cognitive abilities as well as our endurance. Time will tell how long the species endures, but while we are here a distinguishing characteristic appears to be our ability to run long distances. Our ability to work together as well as to simply exhaust prey animals on the African savanna was an evolutionary advantage. These days our ability to run long distances mainly serves to keep us in good health and, in some cases, accumulate cowbells.
I can’t call myself a distance runner (much like I call myself a guitar player rather than a musician). I’ve only run in three 5K races in my life and have never done a longer-distance run. That said, I’ve really enjoyed training for and participating in the Frostbite 5K the last two years. This year was bitterly cold. I was slower by nearly a minute, but still managed to outpace the other men in my age division.
My son, Daniel, stunned me — not only by finishing the half-marathon, but actually beating his time from last year — 1 hour, 32 minutes! Guess the zero wind-chill was driving him to finish as soon as possible. Who knows what next year will hold, but it sure is sweet to be able to give him a well-deserved hug at the finish line.
