Change in Direction

If you are friends with me on Facebook you may have seen that I recently posted that I am now a guest writer for Runblogger, a very popular running blog by my friend Pete Larson.  I will be writing about trail running. As such, I am hoping to get back to writing more personal thoughts on this blog.  I will be posting links to my column, “The Dirty Runner” here, but the full posts will be on Runblogger.

The opportunity to write for Pete is one that I am really looking forward to.  Here is a link to the first post, which is simply introducing me to his readers.

After 4 years of managing, editing, designing, and writing Runblogger entirely on my own, I’ve decided in 2013 to enlist a bit of help. One of my limitations is that I don’t run a lot of trails (at least not yet). I hit the trails behind my house on occasion, but rarely for long distances, and I’ve only run one trail ultra in my life (a 50K). As such, my reviews of trail shoes are limited mostly to those that work both on and off road, and my ability to write informed posts about the ins and outs of trail running are limited as well.
Given this, I asked my buddy Nate Sanel if he’d be interested in writing a trail-oriented column for me in 2013. Nate lives a town over from me, and has a shoe collection that rivals my own. We have worked collaboratively with shoe companies as wear testers, and chat about shoes often. When it comes to trail shoes, I respect his opinion as much as anybody else’s. Nate’s preferred race distance is 100 miles (I crewed for him at the VT100 last year), so he has the background to know what’s needed in a shoe that stays on foot for multiple hours over rough terrain. It also helps his ability to review shoes that he can load miles onto shoes really quickly :)
With that as an intro, I’ll let Nate take over from here:

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Introducing Nate Sanel: The Dirty Runner
Allow myself to introduce…myself (in my best Dr. Evil voice).  My name is Nate Sanel.  I am a business owner, family man, blogger, occasional motivational speaker, and many other things.  And oh yeah, I like to run.  A lot.  In just the last three years I have run almost 10,000 miles.  Most of those miles have been on trails.

When I was younger I was consumed with riding bicycles.  After growing up on BMX bikes I started riding and racing Mountain Bikes.  I developed a deep love for being in the woods, flying up and down trails.  Unfortunately all of that riding led to knee troubles and much less riding.  Growing my business became all consuming and soon I realized that I was gaining weight and was more anxious than ever.  I needed to exercise!!  I decided that I would start running.  My first run was in 2005 and I went 2 miles.  And then I couldn’t walk normally for a week because I was so sore afterwards.  To read more, click here……