This past week has featured two runners on each run. The one running down the road. And the version of me from 3 weeks ago. The version that was not recovering from an illness. The version that was not worried about his training leading up to the Peachtree Road Race. The runner who did not think twice about heading out the door to tackle whatever the training plan had set.
What started as feeling under the weather last Sunday eventually turned into a pneumonia diagnosis by the end of the week. One doctor visit became two, fevers came and went, and instead of tracking miles I found myself tracking temperatures.
May 16th, 2026 will go down as one of my favorite running memories. It’s a memory I’ll treasure because of the people — the friends who drove from Baton Rouge and the Mississippi Gulf Coast to come run Ballin’ on Belrose with us.
What even is a long run? It’s an answer that changes over time. Long runs are relative. Your experience, race goals, and free time all play a role in what a long run actually looks like. There’s no right or wrong definition. And while the distance may change, the mental and physical experience stays surprisingly consistent.
X Brain, Butterfly, Turbo Bumblebee, Black Mamba. If you did not have one of these yo yos in the late 90s, what were you even doing? Fortunately, I managed to acquire all but the Turbo Bumblebee. Looking at eBay now, that may need to change. My middle school was completely overrun by yo yos. Recess was spent walking the dog, building Eiffel Towers, and rocking the baby. Friendships were tested over hesitation battles to see whose yo yo could spin the longest before retrieval. Eventually they got banned because, apparently, allowing kids to have high-speed spinning objects at school was not the best idea.
Runners love to label runs. Easy. Long. Recovery. Tempo. Junk miles. Shakeout. Every run has its place, but sometimes I feel we overthink all of it. At the same time, we can oversimplify them into two ends of the spectrum: a good run or a bad run.
Running clears my head. My brain just uses the extra space to overanalyze everything. Here are five things I always overthink every time I go out.
I’ve never really been someone who shares. Growing up I was always the shy kid. Always in my own head, worried about what people thought. I wanted to be more outgoing. More comfortable. More like my younger brother Paul.
Last summer Ellis and I worked our way through the Marvel Cinematic Universe. This spring has been the Star Wars saga. As I write this, we are in Revenge of the Sith, and he is impatiently waiting for the origin of the Obi-Wan “hello there” meme. Watching these with him has changed my perspective on the prequels. I used to pick them apart scene by scene, but seeing his excitement has made it easier to just enjoy them.
The show Survivor had a chokehold on my house growing up. Every Wednesday night at 7, we all found our spot in the living room, and once it started, that…
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