Run.

If you refer to my post entitled 'Namaste', you'll know that after a bout with gymnastics, a rather self-righteous instructor told my parents to put me in another sport. My apparent lack of hand-eye coordination, coupled with a rather insatiable amount of energy I carried around was what likely led my parents to toss a pair of running sneakers at me and instruct me to "just run". I happily obliged, mostly because by fourth grade I was taller and faster than pretty much all the boys, and beating them into oblivion has to be the most rewarding activity for any 10-year old.

I suppose this started my love affair with running. To say I've come a long way since sprinting around the parking lot of St. Andrew's is an understatement. Over the last two decades, running and I have certainly had our ups and downs and ins and outs. We have broken up and gotten back together many times. While it has been my rock and constant support, it has also been a source of pain and agony. It has sent me running into the arms of spinning, who always gets the job done, yet is totally incomparable at the same time.

Several years after I started running, I ran into a former, rather snarly, high school track coach. His words were enough to catapult me into marathon training."You were always a decent athlete, but could never run distances," he mumbled. Telling a runner they can't do something, as you might imagine, never does bode too well.

Clearly, running has humbled me, but it has also made me realize my limits were mostly self-imposed. Running doesn't care how you look or how fast you go or how old you are. While I'll never win any races, and my pace rivals that of a child learning to crawl, the road has never told me it matters.

Running and I have seen each other through some tough times. Some great times too. But it's been there. Whenever I needed it. At times when I didn't. At times when I shouldn't. Running is one of those things that just shows up for me. I can go back to it. I can lean on it. And I can trust it will never try to tell me what kind of athlete I really am.

By the way, I finished that marathon. I did another one, too, just to stick it to that coach.

Keep Climbing,

ELD