I did not like running, and I had no intention of trying it out. Compared to activities I enjoyed (soccer, mountain biking, ping-ping, tennis, etc.), running seemed boring. In 2000, being relatively recently married, I wanted for me and my wife to do something together (for exercise). She had no interest in playing soccer and Philly was not the best place for mountain biking, so that restricted our options. I’ve asked her to choose one sport we can do together, and to my horror, she picked running. That was not what I was hoping for, but I’ve decided to be a good sport and give it an honest try. So we started running. We even bought a treadmill for winter months.

Long story short, my wife gave up after few months and I kept going. To my surprise, I really liked running. It was fun, it felt good and compared to soccer or mountain biking it resulted in fewer injuries (way fewer injuries). That is not to say that the early months and years were easy. Getting to the point of being able to run any meaningful distance, took a lot of work. I had to learn to pace myself, to keep a proper posture and gait, how to step correctly, etc. I had to work through a lot of issues, knee pain, foot pain, hip pain, even a Morton’s neuroma surgery. Through all that, I kept going, running as much as 40 miles per week.

I used to travel a lot for work. Running has helped me stay in shape and keep my weight in control (give or take few pounds). I would bring my running shoes, wake up early and just go. Traveling for work does not allow for much sightseeing, so I got to do that while running (very early in the morning). Before arriving at new place, I would use a map to make my running plan. Early morning, no traffic, no people, just the sound of feet on the pavement. That is how I saw Tokyo, Amsterdam, Zurich, Boston, …

Over the last 10 years I had the greatest running buddy in the world, my dog Maggie. Being an Irish Setter, she loves to run. We covered thousands of miles together. She slowed down a bit lately, but we still go out around the Green Lake as often as she can.

This blog documents some of our runs. Since I mainly run in the mornings, I’ve taken quite a few spectacular (IMHO) sunrise pictures. For years, tracks and pictures from our runs have been collecting digital dust on hard disks and thumb drives and now, I am finally putting everything together on these pages. The main purpose for this is so that I can browse it and remind myself of all those good times, but if others find it useful or motivational, all the better.