It Begins Tomorrow...

It's hard to believe, but 24 hours from now, I will be in London, beginning quite possibly the greatest adventure of my life so far.  This trip (or various iterations of it) has been something I've been planning for over 8 months, and something I've dreamed of doing for well over a year.  My backpack is packed, I've got a travel buddy (a friend going way back to the fifth grade, Mr. Curtis Luettel), and my brand new pair of running shoes awaits the pavement, gravel, dirt, grass, rock, sand, and everything else they will be subjected to when they touch down on the surface of the Old Continent.

Yes, I am your typical just-graduated-from-college, wants-to-experience-the-world, might-as-well-live-a-little-while-I-can-before-I-head-off-to-grad-school-and-then-the-real-world 20-something-year-old who wants to backpack Europe.  In that regard, my trip (and this blog) won't be much different from what you might find from others in my shoes.  What is different, though, is that most other backpackers aren't in my shoes -- because my shoes are running shoes.  Accordingly, this trip (and this blog) will have a distinct running component.  To make this trip more of a challenge and an adventure, I'm going to run at least 800 miles before I get on the plane that will take me back home sometime in very late July or very early August.  Now, the experienced runners reading this are probably thinking 800 miles in 80 days is nothing special.  It's not.  It's a pretty typical summer training regimen for me (I ran cross country and track for the past four years at the University of Nebraska-Kearney).  The only thing special about it is that I'll be doing it in some pretty amazing places.  Also, when you consider the likelihood that I will be somewhat sleep-deprived, surviving on baguettes and nutella, and that I'll be spending plenty of time traveling around on trains, planes, boats, and buses, switching cities every few days and switching countries every week or two, 800 miles of running might feel like a lot.  Then again, maybe I'll feel terrific and turn into an ultra-marathoner and run well over 800 miles!  Or I'll get injured and not even meet half of my goal.  Regardless of how it turns out, it's in the striving, not in the arriving, as they say.

So why the running thing?  When I go places, I like to see things.  Running is seeing the world at the proper pace.  When I see things, I want the freedom to go see what I want to see, to see it for how long I want to see it, and to see it from all the angles that I want to see it from.  Running allows this.  With running, there is no need to find a parking space when you want to stop and take in the view.  With running, there are no tires to replace when they go flat.  With running, there are very few paths your body can't traverse if your mind wills it.  Your two feet can carry you over terrain that the toughest off-road vehicles and the most expensive mountain bikes cannot.  In other words, running is freedom -- unencumbered by mechanical contraptions.  So yes, I expect to be running over hills, up mountains, along coastlines, through forests... and through plenty of cities - all at a fairly liesurely pace, stopping to enjoy the scenery when I feel like it, and taking lots of pictures with my iPhone so I can share the view with all of you!

Of course, this blog won't be entirely run-centric.  I do have other interests in life.  I might occasionally drop historical or political anecdotes or comment on the architecture of a particular city or admire the advantages of European urban planning over America's car-centric urban sprawl.  I may also discuss more typical travel-blog topics: e.g. the people I meet, the food I eat, or the places I sleep.  I might even refrain from talking about anything at all because I might get tired of updating this blog.  We'll see.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy reading and following this blog.  If you'd like to get a different perspective on the same trip or if you consider yourself a foodie, you may enjoy reading Curtis's blog, as he's studying culinary arts and I imagine will be investing the same level of passion into food that I will be investing into running over the course of our trip.  If I knew his blog address, I'd give it to you, but I don't yet, so I'll post the link later.

Stay tuned for more updates!

Best wishes,

Kevin