Thinking On Your Feet

When the gun goes off, the stopwatch starts. When the finish line is crossed, the stopwatch stops. And when the stopwatch stops, we know who is the best. But do we really? Does that single number truly tell the whole story? Is something lost in using time as a singular reference point for performance?  Time as we know it - splicing up a day into so

I’d already made use of a downed tree to ford a flooded section of trail, then gotten mauled by a set of 6x2 minute hill repeats. It was the first time I had ever sandwiched a workout inside of a steadier effort rather than just the typical warmup and cool down format. On top of that, this was Sunday - long run day - and

The new year, and winter more broadly, is a season for rest, reflection, and rejuvenation. Time slips by quietly, and so turning the calendar provides a tangible milestone for its passage. Such a milestone accentuates the changes that have taken place over the course of one, five, or ten years, and sometimes, more painfully, the ones that have not. Perhaps the lurking ghost of a

In recent weeks, I have been on two runs which, I suspect, having stood the test of time, will prove their indelibility. During one, I trotted along the local rail trail - clear, flat, wide, but still cocooned in trees with animals scurrying here and there - before plunging into a wooded section of singletrack trail whose curves followed those of the creek nearby. It

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