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Flashback Friday: Running the Bases
The Penguin Chronicles :: May 1995 :: Running the Bases On my way to the pool one evening, I noticed a young boy, maybe 10 or 11 years old, standing alone at home plate in an empty baseball field. His...
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Race Relations
Defending champion Stanley Biwott of Kenya owned the streets of Philadelphia once again on Sunday morning, winning the Rock ‘n’ Roll Philadelphia Half Marathon for the second-straight year in 59...
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FLashback Friday: My Hero. Bob Dolphin
What’s even MORE amazing is that I want back to celebrate Bob’s 500th in 2012. The transformative powers of running apply at any age. Last April, I went to the Yakima River Canyon Marathon, a...
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Flashback Friday: Survival of the Slowest
Survival of the slowest We. The few, the proud, the plodding. Steven Pinker, in “The Language Instinct“, suggests that if language didn’t exist, people would be so driven to communicate that they would...
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Getting Your MoJo Back
It happens to all of us. Sometimes it’s instantaneous. Sometimes it’s a slow change that we barely notice. Sometimes there’s a reason. Sometime’s it doesn’t make sense at all. But, it happens. Our...
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Flashback Friday: Prized Possessions
Note the date. November of 2000. I talk about having run 20 marathons. I’ve run 45 now and I still feel the same way. November 2000 Prized Possessions The monuments to my childhood were all over my...
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Run simply, or simply run
I’ve known Thom Gilligan, the driving force behind Marathon Tours and Travel [Marathon Tours] since I first went with him to Antarctica in 2001. Since then, I’ve traveled with him as a part of his...
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Flashback Friday: The Metamorphosis
I wasn’t always as slow as I am now. I used to be much slower! I wasn’t always a Penguin. I wasn’t always as slow as I am now. I used to be much slower! It took 40 years to become so overweight and out...
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Frost on the Pumpkin
This morning, like most mornings when I’m home, I made my way downstairs to get a cup of coffee. I know that the computer was a great invention, and there have probably been other significant...
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Flashback Friday: Doing Your Best
THE PENGUIN CHRONICLES :: JUNE 1995 :: DOING YOUR BEST Doing one’s best–sounds like an easy enough concept. “Just do your best, that will be fine,” we are told by teachers and parents. But we quickly...
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Flashback Friday: City of Hope
A few things that New York City Marathon runners – and spectators – can teach the world. One of the biggest thrills of my former life as a trombonist was working with Frank Sinatra. And one of the...
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Come Together
You might be surprised what Nietzsche and your running buddies have in common. The German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche really got a bad rap. Either that or he needed a better publicist. There was...
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The Recess Bell
Before I had written my first word for Runner’s World magazine the only other writing I had done was my dissertation “The Innovative Uses of the Trombone in Selected Compositions of Vinko Globokar.” If...
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Sticks and Stones
Runners, and walkers, seem to be getting lot of attention lately. And not the kind that we want. Or at least it might not seem that way. First someone wrote about how we were the slowest generation of...
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Flashback Friday: Unfinished Business
Unfinished business We were screaming at the top of our lungs and yelling his name. There was no way he didn’t hear us, but it didn’t matter. He was focused. He was in the zone. He was in another place...
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Can YOU do 100 days?
It’s hard to believe that this is the 4th year of the 100 Days Challenge. For those of you who are new to the party here’s a brief history. In January of 2010 I threw my back out. It was so bad that I...
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Let the Games Begin
This is it. Day one. The first day of the rest of your life. Today is your first chance to succeed. And your first chance to fail. This is the first day when you can make the choice to be who you’ve...
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Planning to Fail
This is the old saying. Failing to plan is planning to fail. Well, the author of that quote didn’t know much about people like me. I did plan. And I did plan to fail. Whether it was a fitness program,...
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Flashback Friday: Reason to Run
Forget stress. One of the best things about running is that it’s absolutely unnecessary. I don’t have to run. Very few of us do, really. It’s not like we’re chasing down our food. We don’t have to...
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It’s a Small World After All
I spent most of last week at the Walt Disney World Marathon Weekend. Yep. I know. A weekend is a weekend. Two days. But this weekend is now a week and that’s great. The first time I went to, what was,...
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