A Run to Remember

I came screaming down the hill toward the Old City. 7:40/mile pace, a full two minutes faster than I'd run up the hill at the start of my run. I guess I should add that I wasn't literally screaming; running fast is what I meant. Surely not my fastest - I honestly hadn't run much in the weeks before my vacation (my Spring run-write-cation to be exact) - but I was running. In Dubrovnik. Within sight of the Adriatic. In fact, at the midpoint of my run, I actually took  a short break, something I never, ever, ever do, and walked a few steps to the water's edge. Then the most amazing thing happened. I touched the Adriatic Sea. A woman from California who grew up a stone's throw from the Pacific, who never imagined she would travel very far and certainly not to Croatia, dipped her hand in the cool, salty water and splashed some of that water on her face. Water from a sea she had only read about and seen in pictures, water she never thought she would touch. 

A friend asked me recently why I run on vacation.  "Don't most people - I don't know, Stacee - vacation while they're on vacation?" I'm quite certain the question was meant to be rhetorical or, at the very least, one she already knew the answer to. I'm not most people. Well, obviously, right? I don't go on vacation to take a break from my life. I take a break so I can enjoy my life. Minus the drudgery of my forty-hour a week job, that  - God bless - I tolerate decently most days, but that cannot and should not be the be-all-end-all of my existence. I take vacations so I have the time to run and write without the usual daily day-to-day stuff getting in the way. And if I spend that vacation traveling, I not only get the freedom to write and run, I get to do them in new and interesting places. 

I've run in places most people never dream of running. Or walking, for that matter. In October, I ran along the Icelandic coastline willing myself not to cry from the enormity of the moment. Not because I didn't want to cry; because I didn't want my tears to freeze my eyes shut. It was cold, filthy cold. Assuredly not as cold as Iceland gets, but between the ambient temperature that hovered just below freezing and the 15mph headwind, it was chilly. Tears-freezing-your-eyes-shut kind of chilly. I'd run in slightly better weather the day before, probably colder but less windy (FYI, less windy is almost always better). A city tour with a half marathon course preview from an observation deck high above the city. How many can say they've not only been to Reykjavik's City Hall, but jogged through it? Hey, there's a cool map of Iceland on the lower level that gives a such great overview of the country's geography that my running tour guide had to show it to me. That stop not only helped my understanding of Iceland (true to Fridrik's word), but I was able to warm up my hands enough to keep running.

Traditionally I choose my vacation spots for their scenery not their climate. I travel mostly in the Spring and Fall to places where Spring and Fall aren't exactly Spring and Fall. That time I froze my face off running along the Icelandic coast? It was first day of Icelandic Winter - October 27. October. I slipped and slid up and down the Stolzekleiven, "a hard but short hike" (Thanks for that Wikipedia) up 722 stone steps on a gray, cold drizzly day in early April in Bergen, Norway. Spring it was not. But how do you skip that? I learned about it the day before on a very hilly running tour. My guide ran me past and didn't quite dare me to do it, but he kind of did. He's a runner and I'm a runner, and he knows runners so he had to know I'd attempt it at some point before I left. I didn't have the energy to look down while I was going up and I didn't really dare to look down while I was going down, but I did stop at various places to admire the magnificent view of Bergen that stretched out amid the gray clouds and fog below me. I can only imagine what that view looks like on a sunny actually spring-like day. Still, I'm so happy that I didn't let a little less than perfect weather deter me that morning. Because, man, you just gotta do these things. Well, I do. 

Let's see... What else have I done on the run while on vacation?

• I've run across the Hoover Dam. What's more I've run the converted rail-trails that were used to get all the stuff needed to build the dam to the dam. It's a winding crushed granite trail that goes from near the Lake Mead Recreational Area through the desert to the dam. Along the way you catch some shade and and a cool breeze (It is Nevada after all, even in May when I ran) in the old tunnels. I was told to watch out for bats, which I would have thought was pretty damn cool. My running guide? Not so much. 

• I've seen Stockholm's smallest public sculpture. It's a little boy, officially called Iron Boy (Thanks, Wikipedia) that stands only 5.9 inches high. In the winter some kind Stockholmers give him a hat and a scarf. Had I not been on a running tour, I (1) never would have found it and (2) never would have bothered. I mean who cares about a teeny-tiny sculpture? Not me before I saw it. The knitted hat is seriously a nice touch. Well done, Stockholm.

• I've run up (and attempted not to slide down) the roof of the opera house in Oslo. We didn't break the law or anything. That's how it was designed. Though the snowy and icy conditions made it a bit dicier than the architects probably imagined.

• I've run though San Diego's Balboa Park, past all the great museums like the Museum of Man and the RH Fleet Space Center. I've actually continued that run all the way through the park, across the Cabrillo Bridge, down Laurel Street (and I do mean down - it's a HILL), watched as planes flew over on their way to Lindbergh Field, and ended up on the harbor near the U.S. Coast Guard Station. Only to reverse course and run back up Laurel and through the park. 

Just this morning, in fact, with about two miles to go and chugging uphill, I got thumbs up and cheers from an elderly Croatian couple waiting at a bus stop all dressed up for church. You don't get that sleeping in on a non-run-cation. I truly wouldn't trade these experiences. Not a one. 

And I absolutely cannot wait to add to the list. The world is a HUGE place and I want to run all of it. The hills, the beaches, the snowy mountainsides, the urban centers with too many stoplights, the old rail trails, and maybe a few real trails. This summer I'll venture to Portland, Maine, to race a 10k along the Maine coast. I know it's going to be another run to remember. After that, who knows? But I assure you for as long as I can strap on a pair of running shoes and put one foot in front of another, there will be more and  more experiences.

In a nutshell, folks, that is why I run while I'm on vacation. 

P.S. I didn't include my run through the Konza Prairie Nature Preserve near Manhattan, Kansas, because I lived there at the time. That day I ran with a herd of American bison (aka buffalo). Sure, they just stood behind - what I hope was - an electrified fence and stared at me. And, sure, I was the one doing the running... But you can't make this stuff up and you can't do it if you stay firmly on the couch at home. That's why I run. Period. As for why I run on vacation... Man, yeah...all of the above.