What a Year: Drum roll please...

I have been blessed and honored to have ran countless miles with so many extraordinary people over the past 31, soon to be 32 years, since taking up this sport. I have meet almost everyone that I admire and look up to as running heroes. I have ran with Olympians, World Team members, record holders, fast, slow, mid-pack, young, old and graying runners from across the United States. Each new run typically brings another day that I get to share the journey with someone else you loves to lace up their Nikes and see how fast and far they can make those little rubber soles fly. However, there is one group of guys who stand out above all others, my Sonoma State University Teammates, or as we are known at the Valley Ford Relays, The Last of the Cossacks. It is rather surreal that it was over 24 years ago that I met those guys in the picture for the first time. We, even our coach, Danny Aldridge, or Aldge as we like to call him, were young, scrawny, dreamy eyed boys looking to cover ground like hungry wolves stalking prey. Before us lay only the possibility of greatness and nothing else mattered. We were out to conquer the world, or at least Annadel State Park! To misquote Dickens, "it was the best of times and it was the best of times!" Every run, work-out, and race was an adventure, mainly due to these four guys. Back in February when we got together to run the Valley Ford Relays in God's Country, Sonoma County, it was amazing how even with all the gray hair, loss of hair, and six pack abs rounded into soft rounds of love, we could pick up where we had last left off and keep each other in stitches the whole night through. Beer, pizza, coffee, pancakes, cheap burritos, more beer, oh yeah, and plenty of running with these guys was just what the doctor ordered and it reminded me just how lucky and blessed I am to still be here above dirt. Running can be a demanding sport on those of us who dream of running fast, even in our advancing years, but when you get to share in the struggle with these guys, it makes it all worthwhile. I could go on and on, but without a doubt, the best running moment of 2012 was my weekend with The Last of the Cossacks tearing up a long run in Annadel State Park and then claiming the Master's victory at the Valley Ford Relays. Yup, I can't wait until the weekend of February 18, 2013 when we saddle up again and let the Cossacks run wild. As always, stay healthy, keep running, and Aldge, I still have your gloves! I wear them almost every morning, so you are not getting them back...sorry.