The Realm of the Spirit---

Met a guy named Mike a few weeks ago who has a love for running as much as I have. However, there is one huge difference between the two of us; Mike will never run again. He was hit by a car while out running several months ago, and by his words is just lucky today to be able to walk. He wears a black brace/ boot on his left leg and foot, but does manage to get around under his own power.

I run into him (pardon the pun) most Sunday nights... and he always asks me how my running is going. I tell him about some of the work-outs I have been doing, and how the marathon training is progressing. He gave me some good tips this last time we talked about my longer runs, which I shared that I sometimes struggle with mentally more so than physically.

He told him more about his running. About how he used to go to the library downtown and check out all the books he could on running. The passion he developed for the sport. How he ran his first marathon in three hours and twewnty minutes; and how after increasing his training and becoming more knowledgeable about running and training, he decreased his time to a personal best of two hours and forty-minutes in the Marine Corp Marathon held in our nation's capital.

But times, age group awards, training schedules are but one side of the coin of running. The other side, and by far the most important, is how running makes us feel and what it does for us positively on a daily basis. Running in Mike's words was spiritual... and he didnt have to tell or say anything more than that for me to totally understand on the deepest human levels just what he meant.

For its exactly how I feel, and something that I could either attempt to describe in a few words... or write an entire book to fully convey that spirituality I experience and live when I run. But I am human, and from time to time I can lose sight of what is right in front of me. When I laced up my shoes Monday morning and headed out on my run, I thought about Mike, and I thought about just how damn fortunate I was to have what I have, and to be able to spend that hour or so out there doing something I love to do. None of us knows when our last run may occur.