“You have to wonder at times what you’re doing out there.  Over the years, I’ve given myself a thousand reasons to keep running, but it always comes back to where it started.  It comes down to self-satisfaction and a sense of achievement.”  -Steve Prefontaine

This past Sunday I watched the movie Prefontaine for the first time in a long time.  It still inspires me.  I may watch it every Sunday to get me motivated for the challenges of the upcoming week.  I recommend the movie, Prefontaine to runners and non-runners alike.  The inspirational message isn’t just about running.  It is about how we attack our lives’ challenges.  Prefontaine didn’t let anything get in his way.  Everyday was a gut check, a new challenge to meet.  He constantly pushed himself to his limits, then pushed a little harder until he achieved his goals.

Steve Prefontaine wasn’t instantly successful at the sport that he helped revolutionize.  In his freshman and sophomore years at Marshfield High School Steve did well but was not spectacular.  He didn’t even qualifying for the state championships.  However, his Junior and Senior years of High School were much different.  He won every meet and set the National High School 2-mile record by 6.8 seconds.  He finished High School with 19 National High School records in track.  Although it took Prefontaine until his Junior year to realize his potential, this movie portrayed him as a risk taker and pushing himself to the limits even as a young child.  Some may hypothesize that he went through a physical growth spurt before his Junior year of High School, I think it was more of a mental growth spurt.

Steve brought this mental toughness to the University of Oregon where he ran for the famous coach Bill Bowerman, founder of Nike.  In college, Pre started to revolutionize the sport of running.  He would start off the race hard and never relinquish the lead.  He challenged other runners to stay with him.  He felt that if it was a close race at the end, he would always win.  The end of the race is a gut check, and he knew in his mind that he had the most guts.  He saw running as an art.  He equated his running to painting on a canvas for the spectators.  He was inspirational.  Prefontaine motivated others to watch and participate in the sport of running; revolutionizing it.

When Pre was 21 he participated in the 1972 Summer Olympic Games in Munich.  He ran the 5,000 meter event against the best in the world.  In this race he didn’t run his usual racing style; charging out in the front and daring the other runners to stay with him.  He finally took over the lead of the race with about a mile left; however, he was unable to hold on for the win.  He was at the point of exhaustion near the finish line, being pasted with about 15 meters left to finish the race 4th overall.  He was determined to do better in the next Summer Olympic Games in Montreal.

In his Senior year at the University of Oregon Steve began to battle the Amateur Athletic Association over athletes maintaining their amateur status.  In order to maintain their amateur status and compete in the Olympics, athletes were prohibited from being paid to run races or receive endorsements.  Steve saw this as being an unfair price to pay for participating in the Olympic Games.  Steve led the way in fighting for this cause, but on May 30th, 1975 Steve Prefontaine died in a fatal car accident.   He swerved to avoid another car, ran into a rock wall, and had his vehicle land on top of him.  He was quickly found by someone who lived nearby but the car could not be lifted off of Steve.   As the samaratian went to find help to lift the car, Steve passed away.

Steve Prefontaine left behind a legacy that is still prevalent today.  No one knows what types of records he would have accomplished if he were still alive, but one thing is for certain, he would have continued to inspire others.

Everyday is a gut check.  Do it for your own satisifaction.  All it takes is guts to achieve your goals…and everyone has guts.

So I read in a New York Times Article this morning that the NYC Marathon is raising its registration fees about 17 dollars per entry.  That’s about a 10% increase.  The New York City marathon is a non-profit organization who says they are just trying to break even this year with the entry fee increases.  I guess the entry fees received from participants who apply, but do not get awarded a race number in the lottery system, doesn’t generate enough revenue to cover the cost of them NOT being able to run the race.  The Disney marathon in Orlando also increased their entry fees by 20 dollars this year.  If it’s a poor economy, wouldn’t they decrease race entry fees to entice more price conscious runners to participate?

Nope.  So far this year, marathon and half-marathon races are seeing record race entrants in places like Miami, Houston, and Phoenix, but race promoters are gaining less revenue. One problem is that race entries do not cover the cost of putting on a race; a large portion of the revenue comes from corporate sponsors.   For instance, the NYC Marathon’s race sponsor through 2010 is the embattled Dutch financial services company ING (who sponsor a number of other large races).  Poor preforming or bankrupt corporate sponsors don’t seem to bring in very solid revenue to race promoters.  Weird.

But race promoters are also saying their expensives have gone up.  I had a phrase when I had just returned home from Iraq and was trying to finish separating from the Army, while also applying to grade schools and find a job.  When people would ask me to hang out or do something for them I would say to myself, “Everyone just wants a piece of me.”  I have found in these poor economic times everyone seems to want a piece of us, the consumers.  Gas prices are rising because OPEC isn’t getting enough revenue from our decreased consumption.  Universities are increasing tuition because they aren’t getting the alumni donations they were used to.  Sports players still demand lucrative contracts so  sports ticket prices have had to increase to cover the loss of the amount of fans at games.  When times get tough, everyone wants a piece.  Possibly vendors and service providers now want a piece of marathon promoters.  Why are they going after marathon’s?  Because the amount of race entrants seems to be recession proof.

Why are marathons recession proof?  Well first off, the only cost to a participant is running shoes and an entry fee.  Possibly more people are goal driven in poor economic times.  I imagine a lot of people have more time to train now that they do not have jobs or are working less because the economy is slow.  What a perfect time to attain that goal you’ve always wanted to do.  Marathon runners usually have high annual household income so they aren’t as price sensitive.  I may look further into whether or not marathons are recession proof.  The allure of accomplishing difficult goals will always be demanded.  Plus, it impresses people at job interviews when you put on your resume “marathon running” under interests.  However, in one interview I had the interviewer begin to talk about his extensive marathon running and training.  But when my PR was a good bit faster than his was he kind of got “over” the interview.  I guess it’s like the Army, you always want to be able to out run those you are in charge of.

Let’s pull this country out of its economic slump one marathon mile at a time!  Yes, we ran!

Go with the flow.  Grip it and rip it.  Do it-to it.  Pick whatever verb-subject rhyme combination you would like but the motto still means the same thing, just go for it.  I have recently borrowed a Garmin Forerunner 205 from a friend and have been loving the freedom I have now when I run.  I don’t have to run a pre-planned course in order to run my desired distance.  I can run whereever I want and feel like!  I am still learning all the capabilities of this product and will blog more about it as I learn but what I want to focus on right now is the freedom you get by knowing exactly what the distance you have run.  I have always felt that I could predict how far I ran with in half a mile and know the time I ran within + or – 30 seconds, but now I can say how far I ran, and at what pace, with confidence.  Not that I didn’t say my guess with confidence before.

One of my favorite things about running is exploring new areas.  You don’t get the same understanding of your surroundings when you are flying past in a car.  It takes a run to notice and appreciate everything.  Although its tough for me because I run by so fast but I seem to manage.  This weekend I ran a route that I had run before but I was searching for another trail that breaks off of the normal path.  I knew what I wanted to accomplish:  10 miles and find a new trail, but I only had an idea of what route I should take to get there.  I quickly looked at a map before I left the house but ended up missing the turn I was looking for on my run.  I decided to continue, I had a Garmin Forerunner 205 so I was going to be able to run the distance I desired.  I would just Go with the Flow.  The first thing I did was follow signs to a Museum that I had heard of but had never been to before.  I ran to it and now know exactly where the museum is.  Next  I saw a couple of runners running on the awkward side of the road so I decided to run over there.  Grip it and Rip it.  This lead me about to a 3-4 mile trail run right next to the road I had driven on and run by about 50 times!  The trails were great and really neat.  I’ll run those again for sure.  After that I had run just over 5 miles and needed to head back towards the house.  I noticed a smaller trail off of the main path which I had never seen before.  Do it-to it.  I ran up it and it ended up leading me to the front of the club house of a municipal golf course I had seen numerous times but had never played.  Yeah, that’s right, I don’t mind playing Municipal Golf Courses.  I’ll even run on them too!  I pay taxes just like everyone else.

The point here is that I knew what I wanted to accomplish and had an idea of how to get there; but when that didn’t work out how I had planned, I adjusted, continued on, and ended up accomplishing more things than I had set out to do.  There’s no blueprint to making decisions about your run or your life.  We all have many decisions to make along the life run.  Usually the decisions that seem insignificant end up being significant and the ones that we assume will determine if we accomplish our goals may not be that important.  You determine what route you take and how you will run down it.  There is no right or wrong path, just make sure you have a GPS of some sort so track your progress along the way to accomplishing your goals.

There are plenty of races to benefit a cause, usually to help find a cure for some type of disease, but what about finding a cure for the everyday blues? Everyone has bad days, what is the best way to deal with them? Some may pop open a beer, I run…then I pop open a beer as a reward for accomplishing my goal.

Some Physical Fitness and Obesity Treatment Consultants believe that running or jogging is the best way to cure depression, or “a lot of bad days in a row” for our purposes here. A study found that depressed patients who had done regular exercise had a better result compared to other patients who just relied on the traditional psychological medications to cure depression. According to the chemical imbalance theory, low levels of the brain chemical serotonin lead to depression and depression medication works by bringing serotonin levels back to normal level. Perhaps the exercise helped these patients because of the release of endorphins we get when we attain a runner’s high, worked like depression medication does to offset the low levels of serotonin. I’m not a doctor though, just a runner that is in tune with his body and mind.

The study also found that patients who had done their regular exercise were found to have gained more self confidence, more happiness and a feeling of accomplishment. Self confidence from starting on a run that seemed impossible at the onset, but actually wasn’t as bad as they expect, can really help you realize other aspects of life that may not be as bad as they seem. There is nothing better to cure a negative attitude than to disprove your own perceptions of a difficult situation. Once you are done with that run, you are happy that you accomplished your goals. I’ve found accomplishing goals I set for myself gives me a lot of happiness. Whether your goal is to run a marathon or be a contestant on the “Price is Right,” (I’ve done both) there is no greater feeling than accomplishment.

In conclusion, go accomplish something and stop worrying about things that seem insurmountable, like a long, steep hill in the middle of a 20 mile run.  Just run straight up it!