Oct. 7th, 2010
Total Distance for Day: approx. 21 miles
Total Distance for Trip: approx. 62 miles
I have the most interesting thoughts while skating. I thought I would share something that came to me during one of my last main training skates back in Michigan:
Where I’m from back in Michigan, there are a bunch of small towns that are built right along Grand River Avenue, a main root between Lansing and Detroit. On this particular training day, I was skating down a part of Grand River that I had never skated. I was going a little further than I had ever gone before. As I skated along, I realized that there was something about this training day that made it exceptional among all of the others, but I couldn’t figure out what it was, at first. It came to me suddenly as I rounded a corner and began coasting down a large hill: This skate was exceptional because I was skating in a place I had never skated. It was a new road and a new experience. There was something else I realized on that skate. I realized that once I began the skate across America, it was going to be all new roads, and the familiar was no longer going to have a place in my life.
I believe that the most memorable and important moments in our lives happen on new, uncertain, unpredictable, and dangerous roads, both metaphorical and literal. When feeling nostalgic, I most often think back to experiences that took place on these roads. So, the best way to ensure that we will have great and memorable lives to fondly look back on is to be continually running new roads (or skating them 😉 ).
