Thinking On Your Feet

You’re at a holiday party, work, the grocery store, the DMV. You’re chatting with someone and they look at you as if you’ve just sprouted neon purple antennae. Their eyes pop with a mixture of fascination, disbelief, and a dash of concern. Your shy smile, your shrug, are already prepped for their next breathless statement. And there it is. They open their mouth and the

Late last summer and into the fall, when the repercussions of the fracture which I had suffered in spring continued to stretch on, the feeling I remember most vividly was one of grasping desperation. I found the cruel bombardment, noisy and forceful, which I had been prepared to hunker down and absorb for several months, to be unceasing. Trapped in the cramped, dark space of

With love, I dedicate this column to my grandfather, Joseph Vincent Behe, who would have turned 97 this month. Some time after my paternal grandfather–”Pappap”–passed away in late December of 2020, my dad shared with the rest of the family a press clipping from a local Harrisburg newspaper. Written with the zippy flare and unapologetic corniness of bygone days, the piece features Pappap front and center

Listen up, people. I’m sure you’ve noticed the same thing I have; there’s been too much positivity in the news lately. Puppies kissing babies. Babies kissing puppies. Rainbows. Babies and puppies playing together under rainbows. It’s sickening, if I’m being honest. Where’s the realism, the pragmatism? As trail runners, we’re all too familiar with the fact that things can be going just swimmingly until, out

Exhalations fogging up thick-framed glasses. Traditional Chinese instrumental music. A peanut butter banana Clif bar. An evening sky with colors so elaborate and vivid, it looked like a tropical fruit. Photo: Vincent Behe I have been on my fair share of runs at South Mountain Preserve, a local park maintained by a nonprofit wildlife conservancy. But this one, for whatever reason, was special. There are moments in life, few and

Odds are you’ve heard of Sisyphus, the mythological Greek figure who was sentenced by the god Zeus to push a massive boulder up a hill, time and time again, only for it to roll back down to the bottom whenever it neared the top. Now, from what I’ve read, Zeus was a crankpot who loved to sentence people to torturous fates for all eternity if

“Hey man, if the race is that important to you, then go for it. It’s your call.” He delivered the response with expert-level diplomacy, honed over years of treating patients with the same fanatical glow in their eyes as that which possessed mine. I was asking for my PT’s blessing to race the upcoming St. Luke’s Half Marathon in Allentown, PA. And while he might as

I heard a quote recently that stuck to my brain like a prickly burr to blue jeans. It’s originally attributed to Lao Tzu, the ancient Chinese philosopher: “those who flow as life flows know they need no other force.” On its face that may seem ridiculous, even unattainable, not to mention more than a little cryptic (seriously, did these guys ever just say stuff like

Pssst, let me tell you a secret. Just by reading this sentence, you’re now part of an exclusive group of runners, one whose number is likely tallied under the total number of Western States 100 winners. You’re one of the lucky few who have stumbled across my first-ever monthly column for the Trails Collective, and I couldn’t be happier that you did!  I’m Vincent Behe (that’s