Liza Howard

Liza Howard

Liza Howard is a long-time is a longtime ultrarunner who lives in San Antonio, Texas. She teaches for NOLS Wilderness Medicine, coaches, directs the non-profit Band of Runners, and drives her kids around in a minivan.

February 2011
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Bad guys, Darth Vader, and Dr. Sheehan

LizaLiza

Asa told me again yesterday how he wanted to be a Bad Guy when he grew up — like Darth Vader.  He’d been introduced to Mr. Vader over Christmas at his cousin’s house.  Nothing Eliot and I have told him about bad guys or Vader has convinced him that Luke — or Gandhi — should be the “when-I-grow-up” guy to aspire to be.  Sigh.  Then a friend sent a link to a new Volkswagon commercial yesterday and I’ve softened.  Have you seen this one?  Maybe it’s on the TV constantly right now and you’re sick of it.  We don’t have a TV, so it really made my morning.  Thanks K.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R55e-uHQna0]

On the running side of things, I read this in Dr. Sheehan’s book last night.

“The distance runner is the least of all athletes.  His sport the least of all sports.  That he does it at all, either well or ill, implies that he can do nothing else.  He has by the process of elimination come to the level of his competence, which is little more than survival.”

Just right, eh?

He concludes with this, of course:

“The distance runner… is absorbed in his encounter with the everyday world.  He is mysteriously reconciling the separations of body and mind, of pain and pleasure, of the conscious and the unconscious…He has found a way to make the ordinary extraordinary; the commonplace, unique; the everyday, eternal.”

Hope your cold cold runs don’t feel too eternal this morning.  May the Force (or the image of a tiny, surprised Darth Vader) be with you.

Comments 3
  • Trimble
    Posted on

    Trimble Trimble

    Reply Author

    i love that!


  • Tom B.
    Posted on

    Tom B. Tom B.

    Reply Author

    Just reading this after the Super Bowl & they showed the VW/ Vader commercial — it was my favorite!


    • lizahoward
      Posted on

      lizahoward lizahoward

      Reply Author

      I think I’ve watched it 15 times now.


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