25 July 2026

There is a reason it is called a “Run”way

You saw the toddler learning to crawl on the runway. She was adorable.

You have probably seen models walk the runway. They are elegant.

Now you get to see a runner run the runway. He was… difficult to watch.

Evenings are not my ideal running time. It was hot, humid, and I was painfully slow. But I was determined to complete three end-to-end trips on the runway, a little over 1.5 km each way.

So, I can now proudly add another completely unnecessary achievement to my running résumé. Right next to “Ran the original Marathon route of Phidippides” (back in 2015), I can now claim, “Ran a 5K on a live airport runway.”

My running logbook may be fading with age, but at least it is getting weirder.

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2 June 2026

What was different today?

I went for my usual morning run today. Usually, I am a bit tired after the run. For some reason, today was different. During the run, I felt a bout of irrational exuberance come upon me and ran sub-10-minute miles for the first time in a long time. More importantly, after the run, I felt less tired and more energized. What gives?

I think I will go back to sleep and wait for this feeling to wear off!

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19 May 2026

But for that T-shirt… I would not have found a new friend

I was sitting in the Courtyard lobby taking an office video call. Noticed the gentleman sitting a bit ahead of me – also on a video call. What got my attention was his T-shirt.

He got done with his call first. As he was walking by me, I asked the folkd on my call to hold on and started talking to the gentleman.

Turns out he had gone for the 2016 Original Marathon – in Greece. It retraces the path of Phidipiddes from the beaches of Marathon up the mountains for 32 km and then 10 km down into the valley and finish off in the first Olympic stadium in Athens. The race bills itself as the “Authentic Marathon!”

I told him that I was there too – except it was the previous year. We talked for some time about running in general before I got back to my call.

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25 April 2026

My First 5K Race After Turning 60

This morning, in a clearly misguided moment, I signed up for a 5K race near a granite quarry about 20 minutes from home. I wasn’t feeling too confident. My left calf muscle was already staging a protest and my knee was eyeing the situation with suspicion.

Apparently the organizers shared my concern. They gave me bib number 619. That way, if I tumbled over face-down, it would still read 619 and they’d know who they were scraping off the ground.

I assumed we’d be running around the rim of the quarry. Maybe I’d get a nice view of the dramatic depth below. The first five minutes went fine. I wasn’t trying to prove anything, just trying to stay out of a level of pain that would force me to quit.

Then came the shocker. We kept going down. And down. And down. All the way to the bottom.

Now, as anyone who has ever taken a basic physics class knows, what goes down must come back up. So yes, we climbed all the way back out. Reminded me of The Grand Old Duke of York and his marching of his men up and down again!

I stopped to walk not once, not twice but three times just to remind my lungs what oxygen feels like.

But I finished it. All in one piece. The organizers were kind enough to give me a medal, presumably to commemorate my suffering.

I’ll take it.

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