Ben Boyd has always been passionate about running. One of his earliest childhood running-related memories is that of standing on the playground and watching an informal baseball game in which a fly ball sailed ever so slightly over its would-be fielder. The outfielder blithely let the ball fall behind him and grudgingly walked to retrieve it. This struck Ben as absolute madness. He couldn’t conceive of someone not wanting to experience the joy of racing to catch the ball, or failing that, at least feeling the exhilaration of running to retrieve it. He made a silent solemn determination on the spot, that running always would be an effortless joyful activity -- he never wanted it to be a bore or a chore. He’s been on that quest ever since.

Ben enjoyed early success in running, winning his first foot race in the fourth grade. Following a childhood and adolescence filled with running, bicycling, speedskating and x-c skiing Ben really got serious about running regularly in the late 70’s. After an inaugural 3:09 marathon in 1980 he jumped into high mileage high intensity training. Eight months later he ran 2:28 at Grandma’s marathon. Four months after that saw the New York City Marathon in 2:24 followed in the spring by a 50th place 2:22 finish at Boston. Things were on a roll and he was on his way! A sub-2:20 Olympic marathon qualifying time was not out of the question. Unfortunately, high mileage and high intensity led to injury. After Boston, Ben suffered injury after injury. To make matters worse, worried that he was losing fitness, he resorted to panic training -- heaping on high mileage and high intensity whenever recovery from injury allowed. This only kept pain and burn-out as his constant companions. What had gone wrong? This was not the childhood experience he remembered.

Over the next two decades his running performance and enjoyment continued to ebb and flow. There would be decent periods of relatively injury-free running followed by more injury and/or surgery. A neuroma surgery on his left foot, an achilles surgery on his right heel, and a severely torn left hamstring were just a few of the many messages his body was shouting at him that he had to change. But would he listen?

There’s an old saying: When the student is ready the master appears. In this case Danny Dreyer and ChiRunning® were the masters and Ben finally was ready to be the student. In 2004 he took Danny’s ChiRunning instructor training (co-taught by Kathy Griest and Chris Griffin) and is now a certified ChiRunning instructor. He has traded his old “power running” (no pain no gain) paradigm for the ChiRunning model and it has transformed his running, as well as his students’ running. And yes, he has recaptured the joy and effortless exhilaration he remembers experiencing as a child running at play. Having been down the road to injury, Ben is now determined to help steer others toward the road less travelled... the road to ChiRunning.

ben@effortlessrunning.com • 858-277-6677