Memory Lane - 4 Hour 'Run By Feel' | LSD

Main - Hastings - Starr - North - N.Star - N.Woods - Gooder - Villa Diane - Princeton - La Salle - Grand

*note - italic text was written after the initial post

Run By Feel is a term that means what it says - whatever you feel, that's what you do. If your body wants to run slow? Run slow! If it want's to walk? Walk. The focus is on feeling comfortable and alert while actively moving forward. Fast, slow, it's all based on feeling.

Long Slow Distance  (LSD) runs involve setting a pace you would consider "slow" and sticking to or around that pace for a long run distance, lowering your heart rate and learning endurance by building slowly. lol sorry if you clicked this link thinking there would be some groovy psychedelic use and running. Maybe later 

RBF and LSD runs have become the bread and butter of this project. They cover a lot of ground, are less damage to the body by utilizing aerobic  threshold to optimize the body's input and output. They are full, immersive experiences. It's like going out on a 4-hour side-quest. "Slow" is a relative term. "Easy" might be better. "Flowing" pace might be my favorite because flowing is easy, flowing isn't always slow. 

Long runs just can't happen in the heat of the summer. More on that in another post (...) but dehydration, heat cramps and heatstroke are all  very real possibilities. I've learned that night time has the best conditions to run in, so I've taken to it a lot lately. It's peaceful and quiet and gives you a great blank space to create from if the mind isn't too active. 

Which makes me extremely privileged to be able to run at night with little fear for my safety. My mind is on "the longer I'm out, the more I get to experience something new and beautiful." For this one, I had just finished a 6 hour study session of the Nervous System for my Anatomy and Physiology course and was still wide awake. 

Yesterday morning I ran a mile time trial with Jake, Adam, Greg, Matt and Darian. I ran a 5 flat; an effort I didn't know how I felt about. A five minute mile is dummy fast but it wasn't 4:59 (seriously tho?). My headspace was still reckoning with what it is to be successful in what we do.  I'll tell that story sometime soon but it gives some context to the headspace I was in going into this run. 

Everything was aligning for a late night adventure. Headlamp? Check. Endurance vest and nutrition? Check. Map?... No way baby! I didn't need no map. I knew exactly where I was going! 

Eau Claire, WI | 3:13 am, 07.11.21

*note - text taken from Strava

This one took shape around the Eau Claire that I knew growing up - the bubble where my earliest memories began; in a house on a street in a neighborhood. For this run, I would follow the streets I've  known from as far back as I can remember; through the earliest years of living in Eau Claire 'til now. 

I left a little after 3 am, I passed University Park and my first EC apartment on Talmadge - that’s a funny story, shout out to Jimmer - up Main Street to the Hastings bridge - a landmark I vaguely but certainly remember crossing whenever I road in the car with my dad to go to the YMCA. It was big and even though I was too little to get a good look at the river, I knew it was there and I knew it was big.

It was still dark as I ran up Starr Avenue, an often ran street from the cross country and track days - the VFW loop was a nice 3-miles from my high school. I ran around down and through. Jumped a fence. One more fence..... literally a third fence? Of course I ran on the track! Even though I preferred Cross Country, Track was electric in its own way. And it was on this track that I learned about body mechanics and running efficiently (also running til you puke) (don't do it).

Onward, past the street my 8th grade girlfriend lived on and straight to my old middle school. Obviously, I ran on the track here too. I only ran sprinting events back then. The longest event I did was the 400. All out speed. If you don’t feel like you’re gonna die by the end, you’re not doing it right. I wouldn't compete in a 400 again until my senior year of high school and only in a relay. But by then, something started clicking and that overly confident 8th grader keeled over in pain and exhaustion after his first 400 had finally learned him how to run it a bit better. 14 years later, at 4 :30 in the morning, an older version of myself putting forth the chillest 400 ever, you could say running has taught me a thing or two. I stopped at the spot by the fence where I learned how to kiss and saw the sun start to peak out from the horizon. 

I ran towards Abbe Hill, stopping on the overpass. I gazed through the chainlink fence that overlooks the North Crossing, a highway that ran right through a sandstone hill that I grew up near. 40-50 foot walls tower on both sides as you drive through it. I remember how perplexed I was when I first saw it. "You mean they cut THROUGH the hill?" I couldn't comprehend that. I remember hearing about how shortly after they finished, deer would go bounding full speed off the side of the cliff, expecting a hillside that had vanished into thin air. Can you imagine? 

I must have been 12 or 13 when they completed that part of the road. One morning instead of driving through La Salle to get to school, we were driving on a highway. How things change. 

I start up the incline of Abbe Hill, I passed Robbie Moore's house on the left (my dear oldest friend!). I remember playing there and thinking Robbie was so smart and always had the coolest toys. Further up, limbs burning, cresting the top. I look down at my watch and read 4:41:25. I was so pumped. Those numbers are significant to me (I was on born 4.14) and my best buddy Bruce (he was born 2.25 ). I love noticing signs. It happens a lot with numbers. It feels like they're constantly flowing past us and we're completely unaware of them. Until we catch a glimpse of one; it's like witnessing the whole tapestry of  interconnectedness in life and reality. 

Buzzing on those numbers I continued on. Running in silence...... PICTURE! I reached for my phone, fumbling with it, feeling the seconds tick away but managing to snap a photo that still had the 2-5 from Bruce, who is the reason I felt inspired and connected in the first place. Wow. The sky is getting lighter. Oranges and Blues.

The last stop on Alex's tour of schools was my old elementary school. Still with the same 30-yard lanes that I raced my friends on during recess. I remember so vividly getting off of the bus on my first day of Kindergarten. I ran full speed through the gates and around the corner to stand in line at the door with the 8 above it.

Running has been a common thread in my life since before I even realized. I spent a moment taking it all in. I sat underneath one of those old metal climbing Geo-Domes. We called it “the Eagles' Nest” because we were the Eagles. It wasn't until 20 years later that I realized they're not all called the Eagles Nest. Just ours. 

I spent 6 early, formative years of my life here. Learning, playing, growing. At the beginning of 2nd grade, shout out to Mrs. Young, I developed a rare bacterial bone infection called Osteomyelitis in my left ankle. I couldn’t walk down the steps to my parents room to tell them, so I crawled. My entire ankle gave out. I had emergency surgery, spent two weeks in the hospital, played ‘Trouble’ and 'Jenga' with my nurses and watched the first few weeks of the Packer’s 1995 Super Bowl run while my bones healed. You know, kid stuff.

I had an IV, took daily blood tests, had an MRI and CAT scan done. I missed the first few weeks of school and when I came back, I was on crutches. To this day, my left ankle is smaller than my right. The doctor said “he may never run again.” 

Well seeeee… about that…

I did a lap around the soccer fields, remembering AYSO and catching touchdown passes  from Brenton Miller; past the big kids track (gotta be at least 50 yards). The sun is almost on the horizon. I rounded back and onward towards the neighborhood I grew up in. 

But first, we git g0t Gooder Street (best street name in EC) and ran through the surrounding neighborhoods. These were special to me. I ran on them a lot. There were at least 6 different ways I could extend a run, each one giving you something a little different. It's remarkable how well I know them. One day my friend Victor and I were exploring over here and found a development with a tunnel that went underneath the North Crossing. It drained into a pond that had started to be reclaimed by nature. 

I remember when this pond was made; shortly after cutting through the hills and the construction of the high way. It became a special spot to go to. You don’t feel like you're underneath a main road. You walk through the tunnel and it's as if you entered a time warp; taking you back to this pond, this space, thousands of years ago. You only need use your imagination. All because a couple kids were exploring. It's amazing what you find when you let yourself go. 

fun story - my brother got a noise violation once from playing music too loud here. He and his friends were having a good old time blasting their instruments through the tunnel and the worried neighbors called the authorities, citing “devil worship.” Music is magic

Right on the northeastern border between Eau Claire and the town of Seymour are two neighborhoods. One is up high on the ridge the other on the low ground of the valley. I decided to run up first. Every time I’ve been up here, I recall two Lion statues and a really long driveway with a gate that prevents access further up the hill. I just assumed that there was only one house up here.

The hill was MUCH steeper than I remember. My dad even said afterwards that it’s the steepest hill he knows in Eau Claire. (1109 ft above sea level! How about that?!)  Despite the climb, I was expecting to be met with the same scene - and as I crested the top, I see the two Lion Statues and the long driveway, but the gate was gone… I could keep going up? .... WHAT?!

I’ve lived near this neighborhood for over 20 years and there is a whole other neighborhood up here that I’ve never seen? No shit.

You know when something hits you that changes your whole perspective? Like something so obvious, that lets you see something in an entirely new light?  I ran further up. I snapped a photo, not entirely thinking I was welcomed, but at the end of the driveway was a hand painted welcome sign with a sun and flowers on it. 

Well would ya look at that. 

The lion statues eyed me on the steep descent back into the valley. No photos please.

The sun was now in the sky. A big burning ball of light that exists so we can exist. I had always known of Villa Diane - a small trailer park on the other side of the 53 by-pass, on the literal edge of the city lines between Eau Claire and Seymour. 

It's been years since running through it. It was still early and the morning sun reflected off of the trees and the sides of the homes; the play ground equipment and lawn ornaments. There was a special calm in this neighborhood. I cherished it. Witnessing such a stark contrast of socio-economic status just 1 mile and 300 ft of elevation away was impossible to ignore and that thought lingered on my mind while I rounded the corner to my childhood neighborhood.

The neighborhood I grew up in might be the epitome of the American Dream, white picket fence, green grass and nice houses. Even the streets reflected a kind of innate patriotism (Freedom Drive, Eagle Terrace, Liberty Court). Privilege to say the least and we were nestled right in the middle of it. I never realized it at the time.

When I was growing up, I saw myself as the same as everyone. I still do now because I did then. It shaped my whole perspective about people. There is absolutely nothing that makes me inherently better or worse than you or anyone else. And if that's true for me, it's true for everyone and that makes us all part of the same life, the same sphere of consciousness, the same intelligence manifested in innumerable forms and so deserve to be respected and honored as such. When someone is in pain, we are all in pain. When someone heals, we all heal. So healing is our purpose. In hindsight, I lived a very safe and sheltered life that allowed this perspective to be. 

On one hand, I got to enjoy my childhood. I didn’t have to grow up fast, so I could be a kid and live with a light heart for longer than most get to. On the other hand, I grew up largely ignorant to the struggles and realities of the world; a little white boy growing up in suburban Wisconsin in the 1990s. 

It works out that the house I grew up in is exactly one mile from each entrance - smack dab in the middle of the whole neighborhood. This made running it a lot of fun! You could go out for  2-3 miles and have a full experience.

Before I learned this, going into my freshman year of high school, I struck a deal with my parents that stated "if I run 1 mile every day this summer, will you please not make me go out for a sport?" (they encouraged sports and I wasn't about it man! I wanted to play video games and watch anime). So I did it. 1 mile a day. I never ran distance before then, but there was something about it that resonated with me. No shit. I went out for Cross Country the next fall. 

I rounded the downhill corner that they added when they expanded the neighborhood and up towards the house I grew up in.  It looked a little different. The garden wasn’t nearly as lush (nobody gardens like my mom!), the lawn decorations weren’t out and there were different cars sitting in the driveway. But still, I was happy to see that there’s life within those walls; creating new experiences, new moments for a family like mine.

My parent’s sold the house at the beginning of the pandemic and moved up to our family cabin. The timing was remarkable because they had been going through the process of moving in the years leading up to Covid, but the pandemic accelerated the process. I was happy to be home and present for it.

Photos from the last few days at the house // June, 2020.

This house will always be home to me. I simply wouldn't be who I am without this space. It was safe. I'm sure I can’t unpack all of it in a 4-hour run, a seemingly endless blog post or even a lifetime of processing. My life was sheltered, no doubt about it- but it developed in me a deep sense of love for my family and family means people. We are all people so we are all family. We are all connected and our relationships are what reflect that; interconnectivity and the sense that nobody is less. We all deserve kindness, equality and respect because how in the world could we not? 

I ran by all my old friends’ houses' - Alex, Trent, Samantha, Jerry, Lee, David, Adrian, Katie. I would ride my bike to their houses and we’d play games. Always games. Always imagining, playing, moving, forward.

I ran by the fire fly hill, up Boston Drive (still steep!) and the parks & rec field where the old ghost willow tree use to be. The sun was well in the sky by now, but it hadn’t warmed up yet; cool and warm at the same time.

As I turned down the last corner of my old neighborhood, I ran into a nice man out for a walk. He must have noticed I looked a little worn-in and asked how long I had been going. I told him about the project and how I grew up here. He warmly wished me well. I left feeling how incredibly fortunate I am to have had a safe and loving albeit sheltered and privileged childhood. 

As I made my way towards downtown, I thought a lot about this project and the abundance of neighborhoods I’ve run through. How most of these roads I've run on have been so new to me. Yet, this one almost felt like watching a past life. 

I thought about how everyone must have this, to some extent -  a space that they knew growing up or a space they feel strongly connected to; how every house has been a home to at least one, if not dozens of families, spanning generations. Hundreds.. actually, fact check - Millions of years ago. Every street is a place someone grew up on, someone learned about life and found meaning. We connect with the space we live. That means every where is a piece of every one.

This was a big one. This was also the effort that made me want to start keeping a blog. Everywhere I ran triggered some sort of deep seated memory and inspired something in me to want to share with others. I appreciate you coming along on this journey, in whatever capacity you find yourself. I am thrilled to be doing this Eau Claire Project and to be able to share these experiences with you. That's what this is all about. 

Thank you for following along. Enjoy the rest of the photo reel. My favorite is the last 👀