the long and short of it

I've decided it's time that I finally try to explain why it is I think running is so very valuable. After extensive discussion with Ciera, I think I might be halfway prepared. So here's at least part of it...here it goes.

Running is very much a huge, extended metaphor for life. If you decide to get up early to get a run in, that's up to you. You set the alarm, you haul your sorry ass out of bed, you tie your shoes, and you take those first few reluctant strides. When you set a goal in running, that's up to you, too. You can choose to train hard, add in new workouts, and do everything in your power to achieve it. If you don't reach it, it's simply no one's fault but your own. The actual running itself provides the best alignment to life. You choose to speed up, to slow down, to give up, to keep going. Sometimes you push it too hard and hurt yourself, and sometimes you take it way too easy and lose weeks of hard work. No one is telling you what to do when you're on a run - you are entirely and wholly on your own. Whatever you do, whatever happens during that run, is a direct result of nothing other than you. You can't blame it on anything else, and you can't give credit to anything else.

What it all boils down to is a very simple pre-school lesson: you are in charge of you. That's running, and that's life.