Wednesday, November 09, 2005

Jason's take on commuting/running

...or runnuting, as the kids are calling it these days.

It's fantastic. It's the only way to travel and it's about 10,000 times better than sitting on the Eisenhower. Commuting with bike was nice too, but this is so much better because I get home and my run is done. Just like magic.

There were a couple really cool things about it. First off, Clark street is an exceptionally cool street to run down, especially at night. Between the restaurants and the bars and the park, there are tons of different looks and neighborhoods. Time absolutely flew by. I mean, we were running pretty fast, but that's not really the point. It still took probably 50 minutes to get home, but it felt like 20.

Another really great thing was the feeling of getting somewhere. Whenever we run, as Leah mentions below, we either make some sort of loop or do a straight-out-straight-back run. This is great if we are running from home (and the only real option) but it is so much cooler to run from point A to point B (luckily enough, point A was the train station and point B was our house. Otherwise, who knows where we would have ended up). I really like the idea of using my legs for transportation and if not for the potential smell issue, I think this would always be a great idea. Just run everywhere!

And finally, yes, the backpack was fine. I never really noticed except when I was noticing that I didn't notice it. Got that? It is sort of like when we are running and I notice that my breathing has been fine which completely screws up my breathing and I have to spend the next five minutes trying to get it under control. Basically, the only time I noticed the bag was if I expanded my lungs more than usual and then I would feel the chest-strap a bit, but it didn't restrict my breathing any. I will probably go ahead and loosen the strap for the next run as I thought it was more necessary than it really is. This give me high hopes for using a hydration backpack in the winter as they are apparently not as annoying as they look.

So, in summary, commuting is much better without a car and I'm really grateful that Leah came up with the idea.

2 comments:

Danny said...

it does seem pretty cool...

how much stuff can you carry in that little bag?

Jason said...

Well, I can carry 2 paperback books, a cell phone, and keys (this is with the bladder removed). That is starting to max out the capacity. This is the smallest version I could find. Most are much bigger.

The great thing is that I can't feel the weight on my back when I run and that it doesn't bounce. I will be interested to see how it works as a water-carrying device.