{"id":445,"date":"2014-05-05T23:41:36","date_gmt":"2014-05-05T18:41:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/professorontherun.wordpress.com\/?p=445"},"modified":"2014-05-05T23:41:36","modified_gmt":"2014-05-05T18:41:36","slug":"to-flirt-with-dirt-a-cautionary-tale","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/professorontherun.com\/?p=445","title":{"rendered":"To Flirt with Dirt \u2013 a Cautionary Tale"},"content":{"rendered":"

I penned this for the kind folks over at Trail and Ultra Running<\/a>.<\/em><\/strong>
\nThey run a great site. Get to know it if you haven’t already.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Full disclosure \u2013 I am no ultra-runner. I have yet to run an ultra-marathon (or normal marathon) and don\u2019t know if I ever will. But, trail-running in general is taking over my life. It dominates my daydreams, works its way into vacation plans, and surely drives my family nuts. Dirt is a dangerous mistress. Don\u2019t believe me? Just talk to an ultra-runner and try to get them to talk about anything other than trail-running. It\u2019s an unhealthy obsession \u2013 a wonderfully unhealthy obsession.<\/p>\n

This is a cautionary tale. Words of warning, not to be taken lightly.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t flirt with dirt.<\/span><\/i><\/b>
\nYou are not strong enough to resist its seductive grasp.<\/p>\n

This tragedy has its roots in the dirt and trails of NW Washington where I grew up. I got hooked early as a teenager, mountain biking on some of the country\u2019s best trail systems<\/a>. The trails were a mere 5-10 minute bike ride from my backdoor and I spent a lot of hours on that dirt \u2013 rain or shine. Plenty of time was spent hiking and camping in the area as well. So, my predisposition to dirt-addiction goes deep. But not once did it ever occur to me to run <\/i>on those trails. Ridiculous<\/a>! I hated running, and to be honest, why run the trails when I was pretty good at biking them.<\/p>\n

Fast forward about 15 years. I am now living on the Great Plains, with little to no close mountain biking opportunities, but desperate for some physical activity. I had begun swimming laps for exercise and had the thought that if I could figure out how to run, I could do triathlons. I biked, I swam. Running would be the necessary evil to compete. I started running, and for the first time ever, got past the \u201cthis is so miserably hard and painful that I never want to do this again\u201d stage and actually started to enjoy it\u2026So much so, that I upped my mileage too fast<\/a> and got some serious IT Band troubles. Arg. Nevertheless, a possible interest in being a \u201crunner\u201d had developed.<\/p>\n

\"FWD1\"<\/a>
Feet – Dirt. Dirt – Feet. Have fun!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Fast forward again to June 2013 when I moved Utah and next door to a venerable local runner Matt Van Horn. In an odd twist of fate, we were from the same hometown and he and my families actually knew each other (our parents had a great time catching up) but he had moved when I was still in elementary school. I found out that he was an ultra-runner and did this thing called \u201cTrail Running.\u201d The concept blew my mind.<\/i> WHAT?! You can RUN on TRAILS?! How had I never thought of this? I love trails. Maybe running on them will help me get over the fact that I kind of hate running.<\/p>\n

And here is where I went terribly wrong folks. I tried it. I a couple run\/hikes up popular local favorites\u00a0Flag Rock<\/a> and Baer Canyon<\/a> in Davis County, Utah. What a na\u00efve fool I was. The moment I stepped foot on those trails and picked up my pace from casual hike to a jog or run, I was hooked. This was amazing. I could get exercise and not do it on exhaust-choked city streets. I could explore trail systems (like I have always loved) but do it at a pace fast enough to actually cover a good amount of territory in a single quick evening outing.<\/p>\n

So here is my warning and my desperate plea with anyone reading this who is thinking about going out for a nice afternoon job on a dirt trail. DON\u2019T DO IT! <\/i>If you make the mistake that I did, and gingerly put your little running-shoe clad foot on that trail and start to job, you won\u2019t be able to stop. I haven\u2019t been able to. More stupidly self-inflicted knee injuries<\/a> and ankle injuries<\/a> aside (that\u2019s a cautionary tale for another day), I keep on going back.<\/p>\n

To flirt with dirt is to lose your life to it.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\"FWD3\"<\/a>
Snow-covered dirt trails are no less tempting.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I penned this for the kind folks over at Trail and Ultra Running. They run a great site. Get to know it if you haven’t already.   Full disclosure \u2013 I am no ultra-runner. I have yet to run an ultra-marathon (or normal marathon) and don\u2019t know if I ever will. But, trail-running in general is taking over my life. It dominates my daydreams, works its way into vacation plans, and surely drives my family nuts. Dirt is a dangerous…<\/p>\n

Read More Read More<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-445","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5qjMD-7b","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/professorontherun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/professorontherun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/professorontherun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/professorontherun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/professorontherun.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=445"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/professorontherun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/professorontherun.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=445"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/professorontherun.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=445"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/professorontherun.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=445"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}