Birth of the Manimal

Today is September 10, 2010, and tomorrow is my very first ultramarathon, the McKenzie River Trail 32 mile run.  Why am I running this?  I hope to explore this and other questions in this blog, and look into certain topics of interest to potential Manimals.

What is a Manimal, by the way?  It's more a feeling than anything else, it's how you feel after a 50-mile road bike ride through some challenging (read:  granny gear) hills, or a two hour run through the woods, or an expedition climb into the alpine ranges.  I am such a manimal! is how you feel.  I also get it when I do something relatively har-har, like an all day backcountry ski, or when I try to do a challenging run at the local ski resorts.  It's something primordial, the psychological equivalent of putting on war paint and partaking in an ancient ceremony, although I'd be the last person to put on makeup.  It's a feeling of connecting your mind with your body through movement.  In my case that means forward movement, by running, biking, swimming, hiking and skiing (and perhaps some other locomotive methods that don't come to mind quite yet).

Who should be a Manimal?  Well, in a word, everyone.  If you are not connected with your physical self in some basic way, then you are missing out on half (or more) of all it means to be human.  I hope to go into this more later, but for the moment let's be perfectly clear.  If you are missing out on half (or more) of what it means to be human, then you are settling for sub-human.