Saturday, May 9, 2009

Pre Motivation

I ripped my 1981 classic U2 album October today and loaded it onto my Sanso mp3 player. It's old music, but new to my running. I warmed up to Gloria, which isn't very long and took off on my 2.5 mile jaunt when I Fall Down started. I finished my run at 3:46 of Tomorrow, so my total time was 19:48 for the 2 and a half miles. That's a 7:55 pace.

It felt like I was running a little faster than that, but I haven't run in a week. I need to get some mile repeats in a workout to better judge my time.

Great run up until about 1.75 miles when I started getting that mid back cramp again. This time I only got it on the right side. I kept pushing through it. Here's why and how...

I just got a free poster of Steve Prefontaine from Athletes for a Cure. His quote on the poster reads, "A lot of people run a race to see who is fastest. I run to see who has the most guts."

Quite an inspirational quotation. I wish he lived longer. It's weird. I have this vision that I would have liked to have known him as a track superstar when I was in high school. He would have been a great role model I think. I used to watch Steve Scott run the mile on TV. And Eamonn Coughlan and another Irish indoor runner that I can't recall his name now.

Anyway... I pushed through the cramp in my back and when I picked it up on the last quarter mile, I got a sticker on my right side, but in the front... so my right side is totally in pain. Glad it was over.




2 comments:

backseat_driver said...

But Pre finished so miserably in the Munich Olympics: he finished 4th. I must say that he did help make that race with Lasse very, very exciting.

To say he was the greatest 5k runner in America isn't really saying alot because dear ole USoA is so awful in this event. Or in any long distance event for that matter.

I've watched the Boston and NYC marathons for many, many years and nope, this is not an event for the country.

Doug said...

Americans cannot compete with the Africans (mainly Kenyans and Ethiopians), because they treat it like we do basketball, baseball, and football.

Our youth are shown that the 3 ball sports can make you rich and famous and adored by the masses. It is glorified by the mass media.

If we did the same with running, those diamonds would be found. When I ran cross country and track in high school, I had a friend that was a good runner. He ran when he was younger and got into football in high school. He could have been better than me, but let peer pressure to play a 'ball' sport take him down another path.

Everyone knows what Nike is, right? Would that have been if Pre and Bowerman not meet and work together? If there were no Pre to win races, would Nike have flourished? How much more could Pre have done had he lived longer? If he helped get Nike to where it is today and his life was cut short, think about how many lives he would have affected were it not so. How many young men and woman would have looked up to him for inspiration and possibly gone into running.

I never even heard of the guy when I ran in high school. It wasn't until years later that I found out him through movies about his life.

In Morocco, everyone knows Aouita and El Guerrouj. In Kenya, the names Henry Rono and Kip Keno. In Ethiopa, Gebrselassie and now Bekele.

What if Pre was in the mainstream like Michael Jordan? How many diamonds do you think would have been overturned in America?