TheBanyanTree: this running year

[Monique Colver]

Jules will be running forever, and I use that term metaphorically.

M




On Tue, Dec 31, 2013 at 1:19 PM, Mike Pingleton <pingleto at gmail.com> wrote:

> Wonderful, Jules.  Long may you run.
> -Mike
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> 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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