running

Running is life.  That being said, as I grow older, the various aches and pains associated with it come more frequently, and stay longer.

I ran yesterday, and it felt great, despite the aches.  There’s something almost holy about running on a warm summer day, challenging yourself just a bit more than the last time.

Occasionally my right knee gets a bit stiff–and my left joins it on occasion–which is why long-distance running (which I define as running for significantly longer than an hour) isn’t too interesting.

I just don’t see the point.

Though there was a time when I did–I completed a half-marathon–but part of me remembers people like Jim Fixx, or more recently, a for-the-moment unknown individual who died after completing the Chicago Marathon.

It’s not that someone expired after running 26 miles–the first person who ran what came to be known as a marathon, a Greek warrior named Pheidippides, supposedly also died–that bothers me.

After all, people die every day.

No, what spooks me a bit was that the person who died was 35.

Thirty-five year olds also die every day, too, though I have always thought of it as an age where you are just beginning to see what’s possible.