Laces

I have run four marathons in my life. All four have been wildly different and wildly difficult in their own ways. I PR every time, though. The last marathon I ran was in Nashville, TN and it was darn hot. The humidity that stifles your voice and traps your breath in your throat. I ran past the finish line at mile nineteen, the route of this marathon was straight crap in a bucket. The hills were endless inclines, and the fans, after mile ten, were few and far between. But I finished, faster than any of the others before.

Here’s what I’ve learned about running for people who can’t run: it is all power. It comes straight from the heart and not from the body. It silences and opens the mind, it raises the legs, the feet, the core. It is stamina built on passion. It is pain endured and overcome. It is determination birthed through momentum.

I have a good friend who has been talking about momentum quite frequently this year. He says he feels some sort of pull and push towards movement. An interesting change given his push and pull towards rest this past year. In physics, momentum is measured in order to calculate force. Any change in momentum will alter the force resulting. The amount of velocity a person or object holds will affect the resulting momentum. And velocity is simply the speed at which something moves.

Prance is probably the most fun, yet equally annoying, pal to run with. He is the fastest horse out of the gate, wasting all his energy on hype and excitement for new smells; ‘another day, another run!’, this is what I imagine him yelping. By mile two and a half, maybe three, he starts dragging a full leash length behind me, so much so that I have to physically pull him to keep my pace. Never fully stopping, always panting, the boy with all the energy keeps going. It’s around mile four that I have to encourage him almost nonstop. “Good boy, buddy, you’re so tough and strong”, his face looking at me, beaming through his gummy teeth, eyes lit but exhausted. I imagine him thinking ‘wow, what a great life’. I often picture kids’ energy to be like Prance’s. The most excited out of the gate, the first one presented, tackling and rolling and screaming for newness. Five minutes later they’re asleep under a tree. I think a lot of life is like this. You’re moving until you’re not. Maybe never stopping, like my short distance runner of a dog that I’m trying to train, maybe panting more, noticing, feeling, breathing, the momentum is somehow always there. We just have to dig deeper for it at times.