We’re into the final countdown of prep for the inaugural Madagascar Marathon. Marathon Tours has sent me the paperwork and runner shirt: A few weeks ago we got our visas sorted as we had been warned the visa on arrival can be a time-consuming series of frustrations.  So we’re all set there: So far as I […]

Global Running Day is a marketing ploy, as surely as National Frozen Food Month, National Donut Day, or Valentine’s Day. But it’s a thing and today, June 7th, is that day. There’s a variety of discount codes for races, gear, and merch.  And in one I’m-not-under-selling-here brilliant move by apparel maker Brooks, it’s a signing […]

I realized today that my ticketed name was missing an “I” and was listed as “Kevn” [sic]. It’s been a long, awful waiting game trying to get information on what this clerical error, what this SNAFU, was going to cost me. After three hours, four CSRs and various iterations of hold music, I’m still not […]

It’s been a rough trip back to the States.  I just found out my screwed up my next itinerary and left an “i” out of my name on the passenger info.  So far the bare minimum fees to correct that are $80; priceline is telling me they need to double check as it involves multiple […]

I think it was in a Melbourne University film studies class that I saw Tony Richardson’s The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (1962). It’s a rebellious coming of age piece that shared some 400 Blows DNA. A cruel reform school was the setting and chronicled one boy’s athletic prowess that garnered him favor with […]

In The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy, the “babel fish” is described thusly: “The Babel fish is small, yellow, leech-like, and probably the oddest thing in the Universe. It feeds on brainwave energy received not from its own carrier, but from those around it. It absorbs all unconscious mental frequencies from this brainwave energy to […]

I’ve been struggling with how to start this post. There are three or four different versions on my iPhone’s notes app. Despite some frustrations with my camera app seemingly not being responsive several times throughout the race, I just scrolled through my photos and I was pleasantly surprised at the number of shots I felt DID […]

In many ways, Stockholm feels like one giant IKEA. I find myself wandering, seemingly aimlessly, yet it’s a methodically curated realm of streets featuring umlauts and d’s and k’s. IKEA may be the ideal Swedish synecdoche. My hotel… well, hostel… is Tatooine chic, as if all the sand dune hovels were painted taupe to give […]

I’m on a jet plane, headed to Amsterdam. We’re running late. I only have an hour layover and I don’t know if inhale to clear EU immigration before my flight to Stockholm or if I can do it when I land in Sweden. If the former, there’s little to no chance I’ll make my connection. […]

So… I printed out the kilometer by kilometer course overview for Saturday’s race. And as I’m sitting here waiting to board my connecting flight I read through it. It sounds beautiful and fun… and to this good ol’ boy from the USA it also sounds unpronounceable. There’s a reason the Swedish Chef gibberish is our […]