Dean Karnazes

I started this morning by doing a 2 mile Heartbreak Hill run - the mile up to Centre Street and back. Because of the stiffness from the other day, yesterday I found a 15 minute yoga routine in the "On Demand" section our cable system has and gave it a whirl. Nothing too demanding - some breathing and simple stretching into a downward facing dog and then pulling back into child's pose.

This morning I could feel the difference and realized I need to do more of this. I know there are some yoga for runners DVDs out there - so maybe I'll give it try to see if that addresses some of the issues currently dogging me.

It was a good 2 miles today. I stretched before and after my run today and by the end I was a little sorry I hadn't gone out for more but I was a little nervous about time.

Today was the day for Dean Karnazes to run the Boston marathon route as part of his 50 marathons in 50 days in 50 states. I was at Newton City Hall to watch them pass at the 19 mile mark and then at the end to see the group finish. He did his best to keep everyone together and cross the finish en masse as part of his philosophy that this shouldn't be about him but rather about the power of teamwork.

Since I wanted to write about this in comparision to a 3 miler across town to benefit Special Athletes, I wanted to make sure I had enough time to get home, change and make it back to catch the people who paid to run with him.

My other regret on the day - I could have done my interview while running alongside Karnazes. Fortunately I'm smart enough to know that I'm really too slow to do something like that and it wouldn't have been fair to everyone else who was excited about the opportunity to be part of something bigger than they probably imagined when they started running.

I'm glad I chose to cover this instead of the smaller race - not because it was more important but because it was something unique... sort of like turning down a gig with the White House press corp to go cover live events half way around the world. Both are a good gig, but sometimes you just have to run with the more unusual over the expected.

Tomorrow will be about yoga and balance ball and stretching, but today was about watching history.



Runners cross the finish line together






















Dean Karnazes after the race