TheBanyanTree: this running year

[Mike Pingleton]

Wonderful, Jules.  Long may you run.
-Mike



On Tue, Dec 31, 2013 at 1:29 PM, Teague, Julie Anna <jateague at indiana.edu>wrote:

> 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
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