My brother Tim and I have been talking about running lately, partially because my book club just read “Born to Run.”  Tim’s a fan of the book.  I am now, too.   The conversations also are happening because Tim has taken to snapping pictures on his runs in the Pacific Northwest.  He is a photographer, so these are not your average look-at-this-cool-leaf photos.  I like that each of his running stories has a different angle.  That’s the thing about running–so many angles to offer.  Of course, it helps to have a top notch visual artist interpreting those angles.

My voice students have been hearing me quote my singing interpretation of “Born to Run” the last few weeks:  Practice being confident.  Practice telling stories.  Practice believing that singing is easy.  Practice those for long enough, and you’ll forget you’re practicing.

“Lesson two,” Caballo called.  “Think Easy, Light, Smooth, and Fast.  You start with easy, because if that’s all you get, that’s not so bad.  Then work on light.  Make it effortless, like you don’t give a shit how high the hill is or how far you’ve got to go.  When you’ve practiced that  so long that you forget you’re practicing, you work on making it smoooooooth.  You won’t have to worry about the last one–you get those, and you’ll be fast.” (Born to Run, Christopher McDougall, page 111)