the Run.

It’s amazing to me how clear already I can see the correlation between life and this training-for-a-marathon thing. How the thoughts and emotions I carry within me through the day are manifested physically in the way I tense my shoulders, in my labored breathing, in the way my legs carry me on the Run.

Some days the Run is an ethereal (albeit typically evanescent) sort of elation…a combination of freedom and movement, endorphins and adrenaline, physical pain and the transcendence of physicality. Each stride loosens and lengthens the taught fibers of my muscles. And on these days, the Run is a breath. A pause. A moment to reflect, to see, to listen to the deep steadiness of my breathing or the rhythmic beat of my footsteps—or beyond myself, to the prickle of tree branches and the early notes of songbirds, or, even beyond that, to the quiet stillness of the early morning air still cool with dew. The divide between the body and the silence is vast, but when it is breeched…asamdwoe…peace.

Other days, there is no peace in the Run. My breathing is shallow and hoarse. My footfalls slow and heavy. Eyes closed, I see only darkness, I hear only the sounds of my body in rebellion against, or disregard for, the silence. My muscles pull and stretch without coming unknotted. My side and stomach tighten as I struggle to drive my knees forward one more step. I feel tired. I feel sick. I feel like giving up.

In training, as in life, I find myself in constant need for a reminder that this truly is not a sprint, that the quality of the Run today is not measured by my pace or by the way my body feels. No, it is solely and explicitly about the Run...about being out there on the path, putting one foot in front of the last, taking each breath slowly and deeply. It’s about seeing the beauty of the race ahead and about hearing the silence.

And it's about doing it again tomorrow.