TheBanyanTree: this running year

[Gail Richards]

I stand in awe of you, Julie.

-----Original Message----- 
From: Teague, Julie Anna
Sent: Tuesday, December 31, 2013 11:29 AM
To: banyantree
Subject: TheBanyanTree: this running year

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