MORE SHEEHAN

I’ve been keeping a logbook for so long that it just seems natural that everyone keeps one. However, I’ve recently come across two very good runners who don’t/didn’t keep a logbook. Is your blog enough or do you keep a logbook too?

I’m curious if anyone out there has met Dr. George Sheehan? I'm curious to know what he was like in-person. I’m currently reading Running & Being as well as Chasing the Hawk, which was written by one of his sons.

I’ve never read a writer who quotes other writers so much. It seems like he’ll quote 2-3 people in every paragraph. I was wondering how he was able to do that until I read his son’s book. In it he talks about his dad’s writing taking over his life and that he had stacks and stacks of books and articles all over the house.

Running & Being has some interesting stuff in it, but it also has some stuff that I find boring. Here’s some more of the stuff I like;

The runner does not run because he is too slight for football or hasn’t the ability to put a ball through a hoop or can’t hit a curve ball. He runs because he has to. Because in being a runner, in moving through pain and fatigue and suffering, in imposing stress upon stress, in eliminating all but the necessities of life, he is fulfilling himself and becoming the person he is.

I have given up many things in the becoming process. None was a sacrifice. When something clearly became nonessential, there was no problem in doing without. And when something clearly became essential, there was no problem accepting it and whatever went with it.

From the outside, this runner’s world looks unnatural. The body punished, the appetites denied, the satisfactions delayed, the motivations that drive most men ignored. The truth is that the runner is not made for the things and people and institutions that surround him.

In this surrender, the runner does not deny his body. He accepts it. He does not subdue it, or subjugate it, or mortify it. He perfects it, maximizes it, magnifies it. He does not suppress his instincts; he heeds them.

Today’s run was the same 8 miles as on Monday and Tuesday – just a little faster, 7:40 pace. For some reason my legs feel better, ache and pain-wise, than before running the marathon. Since it seems like I’ve been banged up since April, I’m not complaining.

Quote of the day;

“There’s not a lot you can do about your normal ability, but there’s a hell of a lot you can do about the way you apply it.” – Dave Moorcroft