DANICA TUTUSH APPEARED AT THE DOORSTEP OF THE CASA DEL TORO promptly at six in the morning. We were planning to go for a long run on the roads around Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Training for a marathon, I was scheduled to do 13 miles that weekend. But when I suggested that distance to Danica, she said she had planned to do less. An hour was her limit. It was a Friday. She had to be at work after our run. And perhaps she was a bit nervous about running with the Big Bad Gunslinger from out of town who might want to run too fast.
Well, not really, but we hadn't met until this moment. She didn't know my training pace and preferences, and I didn't know hers. I had located Danica through the Internet. My wife Rose and I were in Santa Fe for a weekend of art and opera with a Carleton College alumni group. But I also wanted to do some running while in town and hoped I could find someone to direct me to an interesting course--and, perhaps, run it with me.
Getting on-line, I typed in the address for the Road Runners Club of America: www.rrca.org. Checking the RRCA list of clubs, I found a listing for the Santa Fe Running Club, complete with email addresses of officers. After several exchanged messages, I located Danica Tutush.
A Gal from the Region
Her name is easier to pronounce than you would think: Duh-nee-tsuh-too-toosh. She came to Santa Fe from California's Silicon Valley, but before that attended Indiana University. Danica grew up in Hammond, Indiana, same home town as Carey Pinkowski, race director for The LaSalle Banks Chicago Marathon. Small world. I go all the way to Santa Fe and wind up running with a gal from The Region (as in Calumet Region).
Danica selected one of her regular training courses. We started mid-town from the Casa del Toro (my Bed & Breakfast near the Georgia O'Keefe Museum) and ran past the Plaza and Palace of Governors. Though empty at 6:00 AM, the Plaza soon would be teeming with tourists seeking bargains in jewelry. On a previous visit, Rose, who had chosen to walk while we ran, had bought an elegant silver necklace featuring a green stone. As Danica and I headed up into the hills on winding roads, I soon breathlessly wished I had taken that option. Santa Fe has an elevation of 7,000 feet, forcing me to struggle to stay close to my guide.
Arriving at an intersection, Danica announced that if we stayed straight, we could cut the course short. Taking the turn was longer, but more scenic. Having originally lobbied to run 13 miles, I could hardly choose the lesser option. "Let's run long," I said. Fortunately, when we came to even steeper hills, Danica shifted to a walking pace. Overlooks of the valley below and mountains above were enchanting, but I was too aerobically challenged to fully appreciate the scenery.
Nevertheless, I relished the opportunity to see Santa Fe on the run. As a running tourist, I often explore areas off the beaten tourist path by running before a day of regular sightseeing. The only trick is figuring out where to run--or finding a local willing to run with you. With the advent of the Internet, never before has that been easier. In addition to the RRCA's Web site, there are other ways of locating routes and runners. Doug Rennie writes an "On The Road" column for Runner's World that features information on different cities. If you don't save back issues, there's an archive of columns on the magazine's Website, containing nearly 60 U.S. cities plus several dozen foreign ones. Go to: www.runnersworld.com. For more leads, go to: www.runtheplanet.com.
Linking Up on the Web
Or I'll help you connect with a cyberdate. Visit my Virtual Marathon Training on the world wide web. You can access it either through my Web site or the Chicago Marathon Web site: www.chicagomarathon.com. The main attraction of the site is my training schedules, which we send you on a daily basis by email, but there are also bulletin boards that allow runners to both ask me training questions and communicate with each other.
One recent query came from a runner looking for a place to run near Naperville. I quickly told her about the Prairie Path, which the CARA training class uses for weekend runs. Runners from St. Louis and San Francisco, to name two cities, have posted messages recently looking for training partners as they prepare for Chicago. How many romances thus will be triggered electronically?
There are dangers, of course, but would you rather meet someone you'd like to spend time with in cyberspace or in a bar on Friday night?
Coming to another intersection, Danica announced our options: the quicker route back to town or the longer and more scenic one. She already knew what my choice would be. "I'm inspired!" smiled Danica as we took a final turn-off that would lead us through the old section of Santa Fe. What had begun as an hour's run had lasted twice that long. Back again at the Casa del Toro, Danica calculated that we had run perhaps a dozen miles. That was close enough to the planned 13 miles to keep me right on track, particularly considering the added challenge of hills and altitude.
Over the next several months, I have trips scheduled to Scotland, Alaska, Florida and Hawaii. With the help of the Internet, I shouldn't have trouble finding roads to run and runners to run them with me.
Copyright © 1999 by Hal Higdon. All rights reserved.