I had a great lunch meeting today, spurred by Deirdre and Victoria, and accompanied by great representatives from local nonprofit physical activity and mentoring programs. Ideally, these ideas will lead to identifying and serving a need for run-based mentoring for kids in town who could benefit from it most. I'm very excited to help with this program, and as we develop more details, Victoria and I believe the running groups in town will respond enthusiastically as well, as they have for other great causes.
This was also my first time to meet Colorado Running Hall-of-Famer Pablo Vigil, whose running exploits at legendary races like Sierre-Zinal are well-known.
In addition to sharing his enthusiasm for a school-based running mentoring program, I had the fortune to further discuss his history and insights on running, especially mountain running. He, in turn, shared his respect for legendary runners in his time, and suggested checking out his article on his meeting with Lasse Viren in Finland, shown below:
This concept has been discussed before, and from Pablo's writing as well, it's clear that much of running lore is deeply rooted in place, so that the training and stories of our greatest runners are deeply associated with the landscape where they put in tens of thousands of miles.
In that respect, Colorado is incredibly lucky to have Pablo's footsteps all over it.
He shot the starting gun at the Garden 10 miler.
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