Wednesday, June 6, 2012

Running with 'El Venado' (preview)

That's the alarm. It's 3:15 a.m. It's Tuesday. I'm wide awake. The coffee is already brewing, sputtering in the kitchen as it spits out the morning's fuel. From the window near the coffee maker I can still see the faint red lights on top of the World's Fair towers, blinking like beacons across the East River until they're replaced by the light of a burning sun. This is a familiar scene during race training: Get up well before the sunrise and fuel up before setting out on a weekend ultra run, an upcoming race consuming all corners of my mind. But today that's not the case. This morning is a different story. There's no big race on my calendar for at least another month or two. So why I am awake? ... At 3:15 a.m. ... On a Tuesday?

It's time to run with an icon. Log miles with a legend. The late Caballo Blanco called him 'El Venado' -- The Deer. And today, he's dashing through my neck of the woods.

Scott Jurek stands larger than life in the pages of Christopher McDougall's 'Born to Run,' but as he walks across 42nd street, dwarfed by the United Nations building standing behind him, he seems every bit of human as you and I. I'm about to find out just what the legend is like in the flesh -- free from the pages of books and online articles, speaking louder than in the interviews in podcasts and documentaries.



the rest of this article soon to come... now get out and run!! HAPPY NATIONAL RUNNING DAY!!

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