Honoring Pre

Over the last month I have spent a considerable amount of time at home in Eugene, Oregon. While in Eugene, I made it a regular habit to "Honor Pre". This essentially means that my friend Ryan and I run "Pre's Trail" and we would attempt to Honor Pre, by running hard and giving it our all. We were able to manage close to a 7 minute mile over the 4+ mile trail. We regularly felt that we were honoring the spirit of The Legend, Steve Prefontaine.

As you can imagine, after a hard run, a man can be pretty hungry. Thank God, Ryan found Dave's Killer Good Seed Bread. We combined this absurdly good bread (the best sliced bread since sliced bread) with naturally smoked turkey and a wide array of pestos, cheeses, mustards, guacamoles, tabascos, really whatever came to mind that day.

It was phenomenal. I'm going to go so far as to say it might end up being one of the most memorable experiences of my life.

You see, it combined a number of things that I love. Let me list some of them.

-Achieving athletic excellence.

-Giving honor to one of the few true legends, the God Father of Track Town USA (Eugene, Oregon): Steve Prefontaine.

-Eating a great meal that is the product of a lot of thought and care, and thus becomes a topic of conversation itself. (Unfortunately I don't have any photos of our creations, but they are worthy of an entire website.)

-Good conversation/friendship. (Chris's fat, lazy ass would join for sandwiches. He didn't Honor Pre though.)

Chris, Me, Ryan. (Note the Stop Pre shirt.) Photo circa 2007.

-Indulging myself in the culture of Eugene. The Willamette River, running trails, Pre, Alton Baker Park and its ducks, Autzen Stadium and its Ducks, great local food products (Dave's is from Portland), and wearing state of the art Nike apparel.


-And just in general, that feel good feeling about life.

Essentially, a day of Honoring Pre was a day when many simple pleasures were combined to make for a great day. I think Pre is smiling.


p.s. I'm thinking next time I'm in Eugene we should have someone get some photo documentation of such a day.