running

There are many challenges to long distance running, but one of the greatest is the question of where to put on's house keys.

All I do is keep on running in my own cozy, homemade void, my own nostalgic silence. And this is a pretty wonderful thing. No matter what anybody else says.

The freedom of Cross Country is so primitive. It's woman vs. nature.

Imagine your kid is running into the street and you have to sprint after her in bare feet," Eric told me when I picked up my training with him after my time with Ken. "You'll automatically lock into perfect form--you'll be up on your forefeet, with your back erect, head steady, arms high, elbows driving, and feet touching down quickly on the forefoot and kicking back toward your butt."You can't run uphill powerfully with poor biomechanics," Eric explained.

Your friends will still be your friends, if they're good friends.

Elite runners are genetically gifted, sure, but without intense training, those gifts are wasted. Their training creates a strong work ethic that leaves humility in its wake. There are no short cuts in marathoning, so anyone who is a marathoner has worked hard.

Of course it was painful, and there were times when, emotionally, I just wanted to chuck it all. But pain seems to be a precondition for this kind of sport. If pain weren't involved, who in the world would ever go to the trouble of taking part in sports like the triathlon or the marathon, which demand such an investment of time and energy? It's precisely because of the pain, precisely because we want to overcome that pain, that we can get the feeling, through this process, of really being alive--or at least a partial sense of it. Your quality of experience is based not on standards such as time or ranking, but on finally awakening to an awareness of the fluidity within action itself.

I could feel my anger dissipating as the miles went by--you can't run and stay mad!

Whatever you may be missing right now - a person, a place, a feeling, maybe you are injured and missing running - whatever it is, have peace and take heart - remember that any goodbye makes room for a hello.

Their hearts, lost in thought, slowly tick away time. When we pass each other on the road, we listen to the rhythm of each other's breathing, and sense the way the other person is ticking away the moments.

What I've learned from running is that the time to push hard is when you're hurting like crazy and you want to give up. Success is often just around the corner.

Running is real and relatively simple_but it ain't easy.

Remember, it__ the pace that kills, never the distance.

We wouldn't be alive without love we wouldn't have survived without running maybe we shouldn't be surprised that getting better at one could make you better at the other.

I just run. I run in void. Or maybe I should put it the other way: I run in order to acquire a void.

I don't answer. I shut my eyes and hold my breath and hope whoever it is will think I'm not here and go home.

People sometimes sneer at those who run every day, claiming they'll go to any length to live longer. But don't think that's the reason most people run. Most runners run not because they want to live longer, but because they want to live life to the fullest. If you're going to while away the years, it's far better to live them with clear goals and fully alive then in a fog, and I believe running helps you to do that. Exerting yourself to the fullest within your individual limits: that's the essence of running, and a metaphor for life _ and for me, for writing as whole. I believe many runners would agree

He wanted to impart some of the truths Bruce Denton had taught him, that you dont' become a runner by winning a morning workout. The only true way is to marshal the ferocity of your ambition over the course of many days, weeks, months, and (if you could finally come to accept it) years. The Trial of Miles; Miles of Trials. How could he make them understand?