Steve-o called today with a sweet new prospect. It's not really new, it's totally old school actually. It's called Free Running. Have you heard of it? What a great way to do some power and agility work while having a total blast. Here is a video of some kids having fun during a Free Run.
Free Running Kids - The most amazing videos are a click away

I think every High School Cross Country runner has done some free running at some point in their career. I remember going out for easy runs when I was in HS in Morro Bay and we would do these "adventure" runs. We would find all these crazy trails around the bay that wove through eucalyptus groves, under bridges, across streams, through drainage pipes, and over sand dunes. We would stick together and usually we came back wet, dirty, and extremely happy. Sometimes we joined up with the boys team and ran their crazy route which just brought us all closer together. Uh-Huh, Ahhhh-Yea.

The feelings I can conjure up (I'm thinking back 12 years now) were of wild abandon, of excitement, and bonding. We always came back from those runs a stronger group. We laughed together and for one afternoon we didn't have a care in the world. It wasn't about the races that we were training for, or the scholarships we were racing for, we just were out there, 8 bad a$$ girls running through the jungle.

So when Steve called today and had me look at these videos I got a twinkle in my eye. I got giddy. His idea is to get a group together to go out every once in awhile and run all over stuff. Up and over benches, through crazy trails, all over the place. I am so there, after all, adventure has always been my middle name. It just reminds me how much we all need to incorporate adventure into our training. It reminds you of that kid, or teenager, careless, footloose, fancy free.

Here is another parting video of some some Scottish guys tearing it up.

The Scottish Free Running Championship Finals 2007 - For more funny videos, click here