TheBanyanTree: this running year

[Teague, Julie Anna]

I ran five miles on January 1, 2013, and just finished with 5.5 miles 
today, December 31, for a year total of 952 miles.

Through rain, sleet, snow, wind, brutal heat, frigid cold,
     and some days that were perfect beyond belief.
In the company of my best running buddies
     and all alone with my own thoughts, the sound of my heart
     in my ears and the thunk of one pair of running shoes.
In the deep silence of a dirt trail in the woods
     and through city streets lined with yelling supporters and rock bands
With headlamps in the pre-dawn dark of early morning
     and the scary black-hole dark of midnight,
     and with shades in the bright sun of noon or the diamond whiteout of snow

I have run.  Some of the best parts of my life happen while I'm 
running.  I've laughed, cried, talked problems, books, kids, current 
events, and once learned news of a friend that sucked the breath out of 
my lungs and threatened to stop my beating heart.

I have run with my whole heart.  I have made my peace with the days 
when the run is hard, when it sucks to be running, when I want to quit. 
Today it's like this.  Tomorrow it won't be.  And saved up the joy of 
the days I felt like I was a deer in the woods, that my legs were 
beautiful, muscled machines, that I could run forever. Today it's like 
this.  Tomorrow it won't be.

I mark the miles in the small, falling apart notebook I keep on my desk 
that contains a scribble for every run since August, 2009.  I hang the 
clanking medals from hooks in my bedroom.  I flatten and stack the many 
race numbers. I pile the endless pairs of dirty, broken shoes in the 
garage.  These running years. They slip and slide and flow on by and I 
feel deeply grateful, passionately alive, vibrantly healthy, and 
continually inspired by the experience of it all.

Julie