I had an epiphany several days ago why I love running. I had just one of those glorious great runs where you just keep speeding up because you feel so good (my beginning pace was 10:30 for the first mile, my last half mile was a 6 flat pace and my overall 6.3 run ended up being 54x so you can see how much I ended up speeding up). I think what most people chase and want out of running happened on that run. I think I also realized why people who have never felt that glorious feeling will never understand why we do it day in and day out because they have never felt that amazing feeling. Feel it once and you will never want to quit and spend the rest of your life chasing it.
My facebook comment afterwords:
Running is a thing of beauty, it is a fickle master, it will beat you down and raise you up. It will give you joy and it will give you pain. But there are those days when everything lines up right and everything is glorious. On those days you could run forever, you could run faster than you ever imagined. All the early mornings, all the crappy runs, all the times when you were exhausted or when you would rather be doing anything other than running gives way for one glorious run where it is all worth it and the joy of running is there. You may never be an elite but you are faster than you were yesterday and tomorrow you will be faster than you were today and even if your not you're still faster than that guy on the couch, that guy that never even laced up his shoes. The joy that only a runner will ever know, the joy that people imagine when they think of the word marathoner, the joy off all the crappy runs, all the early mornings giving away to one glorious run where everything is right and everything is amazing. You're a god in running shoes, you're a sweat covered deity, the roads and your trails are your dominion and today you conquer them all.
Just felt like sharing go out and run and chase that glorious feeling.
Fear is a Liar
Hey - who left the door open?
I'm so vegetarian I don't even eat animal crackers!
Someone actually sent me a link like last week or so but I kept holding off hoping that RWOL would get better but alas to no avail.
Well make sure you wipe your feet real good. We just had the carpet cleaned and we don't want no stinkin' spam tracked in here!
Rungry!
Wow, what an inspiring post. Nice to see you, Dizzy!
Jen
Oh, no!
Short term goal: 17:59 5K
Mid term goal: 2:54:59 marathon
Long term goal: To say I've been a runner half my life. (I started running at age 45).
I've had runs like that. To me running is so much more than just running and sometimes and I get choked up or teary on certain runs. I love it and I totally understand where you are coming from.