Plantronics BackBeat GO 2 Bluetooth Wireless Stereo Earbuds

Look, I concede that wires are not a hardship. I prefer the security of a direct physical connection for my most important work, like wired ethernet and XLR cabling from recorders to microphones. But these headphones are my favorite way to listen and they cost $65 on Amazon.

They have some drawbacks: they’re rechargable, so if you don’t keep up with charging them, they inevitably die once you’ve run about five miles from your house.

I really like them for running. I just power them up, they link to my phone or my iPod, and off I go. I can operate the device with one hand, without craning around to see what’s on the outside or my arm and without the cord flopping around. I don’t have to thread the wire under my collar to keep it from gradually pulling the earbuds out of my ears. They just work.

And I honestly believe they make me faster. I am highly motivated by music when I run. A good playlist will actually cut as much as 10 seconds a mile from my pace, I’ve found, compared to other sound, like podcasts. And these headphones are the simplest connection of all between my ears and what I want to listen to.

Boston Marathon

The Boston Marathon is being run this morning, a year after the terrible attack that killed three people and injured hundreds of others.

I crossed that finish line back in 2007. Its hard to explain to people who haven’t been there, but it is a transformative moment, that run through Boston, even without the commemoration. I didn’t understand that before I went seven years ago. I thought it was just another race.

It is electric. After you get through the four Newton Hills and past Boston College, you’re totally spent physically. The glycogen is gone and your brain is swimming in this chemical soup of pain — and the crowd is stunning. They’re beaming at you, like the Twin Cities marathon crowd a hundred fold. They’re standing in rank after rank on the course and in places you can hear the roar even before you get there.

I imagine it must be what its like at the Olympics or the Super Bowl.

The great thing about Boston is that its the one sporting event like that that you can actually decide to participate in. You don’t have to get picked in the draft or have a miraculous fastball. You can set your mind to it, do the training, run a qualifying race and then step up to the starting line of one of the most famous athletic events in history.

There’s nothing like it.

Two Bridges run

This is a Bing map of my all time favorite run. Mostly because its so close to my house, but for other reasons, too. Erika and I call it “Two Bridges,” although I’m sure that’s what everyone else calls it too: it’s the Minneapolis and St. Paul park paths that run between the Lake Street bridge and the Ford Parkway bridge.

I imagine that some people get tired of running the same route, over and over, but I never tire of this one. I can practically run the route in my sleep. Even now, I can picture the granite cobblestones at the foot of Summit Avenue, the chipping limestone pavers at the west end of the Lake Street bridge, the stump on the bluff above the Ford Dam.

But even so, its always changing. Because I am on this route so often – I know I’ve run it 300 times at least – I notice everything. The buds on the branches, the falcon in the tree, the Gatorade bottle left by the path in front of Minnehaha Academy.

It’s also along the only gorge in the Mississippi River, a permanent geological fixture that changes constantly. There’s always something floating in it, although sometimes just ice. There’s a storm sewer outfall at the foot of Marshall Avenue that is an ever evolving canvas of graffiti. The river rises and falls against the concrete lip of the outflow, changing sometimes by just a few inches from day to day.

We didn’t even really realize this was here when we moved into our house in St. Paul. But it has, over the course of nearly two decades, become one of the defining amenities of our residence. It’s so easy to just slip out the back door and see what this slice of the world looks like. It is practically irresistible to pay it a visit, burn off 800 calories or so and churn out another six miles on the odometer.

Running outside

Some people mark spring when the snow melts, or when Daylight Savings Time ends or when they hear the birds singing again outside in the morning.

Me? It’s the first run outside in shorts and a T-shirt. That’s the day the barred doors of winter finally swing open for me, and today is that day.

It was 50 degrees when I tied my shoes on and headed out for the first outdoor run I’ve done since November — up the river to Franklin Avenue, down the Minneapolis side to Ford Parkway and back up the river to my house.

It’s still wet out — there are places along the riverside paths that are completely submerged by melt water. Everything is still filthy with sand and grit spread around during the winter. The handle on the river bluff water pump north of Lake Street won’t be bolted on for more than a month yet.

But the sun was shining, people were out walking down the path without hats and mittens, the sky was clear and the sun was shining. Goodbye winter. I can’t remember one I’ve been more glad to be done with.

Nike Patella Band

Two hundred fifty two miles. That’s how far I got before my knee gave out.

I started running 20 miles a week in December. I’m shooting for a 1,000 mile year. I left work on Thursday and had shooting pain under my left kneecap as I stood up from my desk — I hadn’t run in more than 48 hours.

I’ve had similar things after early season bike rides, particularly down at Hell Week, in Fredricksburg, Texas. (My other knee, by the way is recovering from falling down on the icy asphalt behind my garage last week.)

Normally, I just lay off, don’t work an injury and try to let it heal up before I go back to working out. In 2012, I had a nagging achilles injury that I waited for two weeks, then four weeks, then two months, then six months to heal, because I kept going out and reinjuring it.

But this felt like the patellar tendonitis I’d had down in Texas. So I tried out a “patella strap” made by Nike.

It was like a miracle cure. I got on the treadmill and ran 14 miles with it. Not only is my knee not hurting as I run, but it quit hurting the rest of the time (except for sitting through Othello last night at the Guthrie).

I’m used to slow, tedious healing. I can’t believe what a difference this thing has made for my knee in the last 48 hours. I’m back on the road, and it sure feels good and I’m at 266 miles as of this morning.

National Mall, Washington, D.C.

I think this may be the best run in America: from the Lincoln Memorial along the Reflecting Pool, past the Washington Monument, through the Smithsonian and around the Capitol. It’s about a four mile loop. It’s full of people, like it was this afternoon, when I took this picture.

It’s also got history at practically every turn, like the World War II Memorial, the Vietnam Memorial and one of my favorites: an engraving on the spot where Martin Luther King Jr. spoke on the steps of Lincoln Memorial in 1963.

It also seems seems like every time I’m here there’s some kind of construction project to look at on the Mall. These days they’re repairing the Washington Monument after a 2011 earthquake.

But the best part: Minnesota was bracing for more than a foot of snow and on the National Mall, the sun was shining, it was 56 degrees and I could run outside in shorts and a T-shirt. It’s my first miles away from a treadmill since Dec. 1.  It’s just the third week of February, but I could feel spring coming today.

LifeFitness 95t

I have run 204 miles in the last 10 weeks, nearly all of it on these treadmills at LifeTime Fitness.

I’m trying for a 1,000 mile year, starting on Dec. 1, 2013. I have to run two 10 kilometer runs and another 8 miler every week to get there, and I’ve got a pretty good start.

Twenty miles a week is not that far if I just keep chipping away at it. But doing it on a treadmill, in a health club basement for 10 weeks, has been very, very challenging.  It’s incredibly boring. I can just feel my legs wearing into a rut, and I’m worried that injury won’t be far behind.

That said, I like the 95t treadmill because I can set it for a 10 kilometer run with rolling hills and just go into autopilot. Watch a basketball game on the ESPN, watch Ashley Wagner’s debut in Sochi, catch the 6 o’clock news that I never watch at home. I hardly have to think: I just start running and pretty soon I’m there. I’ve also managed to inch up my speed, little by little, getting faster for when I can run outside again.

But man, oh man, this has been a tough winter to get into a running program. It’s hard to dare even stepping foot outside.

Asics Gel-Kayano 19

Meet my ride. I just got a new pair of Asics Gel Kayanos 19s.

I have very flat feet.  I’ve scoffed in the past and run in $30 shoes I picked up at Costco. “Shoes are shoes,” I tell myself. Inevitably, it seems to cost me. Ankle problems, freaky fractures, foot injuries.

These Asics shoes cost like $100 a pair in ugly colors like this. But they have a singular value: I have always managed to stay on the road when I have a pair of these. And I still have a long, long, long way to go.