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by Michael Selman It has been said that runners have their best thoughts of the day while out running. Runner and writer Michael Selman shares his "Thoughts on Running" with us here at ontherunevents.com.
or B) Locking yourself out of your car Who among us has never done this? If not, then you cannot call yourself a runner. The best you can claim to be is a "recreational jogger." It doesn't have quite the same ring, does it? There are various means to reaching this end. Sometimes, you just bring the wrong key. I have locked myself out of the house this way a couple of times. It goes like this. I grab the key to the house, tuck it in the key pocket of my shorts, lock the door and pull it closed behind me. Then I go for my run, usually wondering where my next article is going to come from. When I finish my run, I confidently reach in my key pocket, pull out the key and discover that now, I can also lock the dead bolt lock, which requires a totally different key. Locking yourself out of the house isn't too bad, because you can usually hang out with a neighbor until a spouse comes home. You eventually gain access to your home without having to call AAA. The more severe of the lockouts is the automotive variety. They are worse for many reasons. First, they usually occur in the middle of nowhere. Second, you may really have to inconvenience someone else to travel long distances at inappropriate times to bring an extra key. Third, you may have to shell out large sums of money to repair broken glass, motors in power windows, or to pay for roadside assistance. From personal experience, I can tell you that the two most common reasons for locking ones key in the car are miscommunication and stupidity. I'll relate a few of my exclusive experiences to you now. The very first business trip I ever went on was to Lexington, Ky. There were some beautiful places to run there, but none were really convenient to my hotel. I drove to one really nice park, tucked the key to my Chevy Sprint in my key pouch, and had a very pleasant ramble around the park. It's always invigorating to discover new places to run when you travel. I was really pleased with myself until I got back to the parking lot and realized that the key to my Sprint would not work too well with the Toyota I was renting. My next business trip was to Tampa, Florida. I found a wonderful place to run on a pedestrian path leading up to the Clearwater Causeway. Again, it required a drive from the hotel. This time I was cautious to be sure to bring the keys to the car I was renting with me on my run. I locked my wallet in the glove compartment using one key, and then used the other key to lock the car from the outside. I tucked both keys in my pocket and took off on a very scenic run as the sun was rising. It was a stunningly beautiful sunrise, and I effortlessly glided over the trail, with just the clinking of the keys to keep me company. Did you ever notice that, as running shorts start to age, the first thing to lose it's integrity is the lip of the key pocket? Depending on the design, a determined key can sometimes slip over the edge of the pocket and escape. Well, as I was admiring the beauty of the Tampa Bay sky, I noticed my keys weren't jingling together any more. I felt the pocket and there was only one key there. The whole rest of the run, I felt like a contestant on Lets Make a Deal. There was a 50/50 chance that the key that remained would open the car door. If I had the option, I would have traded it for $500 and the curtain that Carol Merrell was standing in front of. When I finally got back to the car, I put the key in the lock. It wouldn't turn. I sat back on the car wondering what I was going to do, and felt something kind of unusual. It was the other key. As it turned out, the key had slipped out of my pocket, bus was caught in the "support" below. It did leave a really interesting imprint on a body part which I shall not elaborate on at this or any other time. For a few years, there used to be another big point to point 10K race on July 4th weekend, which wasn't in Atlanta. It started on the Jersey side of the George Washington Bridge, crossed over and ended at Inwood Park in New York. My father and I decided to do this race one year. He was living in Fort Lee, New Jersey, about three miles from the start of the race. Point to point courses are always logistically inconvenient for the runners, especially if the race doesn't offer any kind of shuttle service. This one didn't. We planned our day as if we were members of the IMF force on Mission:Impossible. We got up at 5 AM on race morning and drove our two cars over to Inwood Park. We then parked my car there, drove back to Jersey in his car, and filtered in with 3,000 other runners at the starting line, with old glory hanging from the near span of the bridge. The cannon boomed, the bridge shook, and we were off. It was a great race. To this day, bridge runs are among my favorites. It was an additional comfort to know that my car was only one block from the finish line. If we were lucky, we could shoot back to Jersey before the bridge converted back to it's usual congested state. As we approached the car, I suddenly realized that I had forgotten one minor detail in this master plan. At about the same time, dad said "Okay, let's go so we can beat the traffic." What I told him next didn't please him at all. I had forgotten to pocket the key to my car before heading for the starting line of the race. The key was still in the glove compartment of the car on the Jersey side of the bridge. The rest of the day went like this.
10:00-10:15 Hail a cab Bridge runs and locked cars seem to go together. We were getting ready to run the Tri-Span Run in Wilmington, North Carolina one year. It's a very challenging 8K race held every August in muggy intolerable Coastal Carolina conditions. The course crosses over three bridges along the route. Two of the bridges have metal gratings across their spans which have sliced runners up in the past and sent them to the hospital. We were stretching by my car, and just before race time, we opened up the trunk and threw all our goodies in: our T-shirts, upcoming race applications, the keys............and closed the trunk. Fortunately, one of our friends at the race was a policeman on the local force. He said he'd help us get into the car after the race. We looked for him after the race. When we found him, he seemed in a hurry. When we got his attention, he said he had to leave because something had just come up, but he gave us his own personal Slim Jim, a device used to pick car locks. "Just bring it back to the station when you are finished with it." he said, and then he was gone. We tried our best to open the car door using this thing, in the middle of a busy street, to no avail. People walking by gave us funny looks. We were about to give up and call a locksmith when a really roguish looking guy passed by. Instinctively, I said "Excuse me, do you know how to pick a car lock?" His eyes lit up. Am I a good judge of character, or what? The car was opened in less than a minute. We had some explaining to do when we returned the Slim Jim to the police station. I hope our friend is still on the force. By the way, we don't do bridge runs any more.
Thanks Michael for sharing your "Thoughts on Running" with us here at ontherunevents.com Look here for more "Thoughts on Running" by Michael Selman
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You cannot really call yourself a runner until you
have experienced one of the following: