The answer to the big questions in running is the same as the answer to the big questions in life: Do the best with what you’ve got. – George Sheehan
Just this moment dawned on him, today would’ve been his little brother’s sixty-ninth birthday. Man been dead since eighty-three. Mike’s obituary around here some place. Kid shot himself in the head a long time ago. Still wished he had picked up the phone that night.
The last American cowboy with his sidekick, Stubby
The old man was just ten minutes into his first mile of the morning, when he felt a certain victory. He was running.
To the casual or untutored, a single glance perhaps, you might think he was walking.
Not that goofy race-walking, where it looks like you are going to crap your pants and you gotta hurry.
He hurried. The solid purposeful stride of a man who had never lost the focus of a mad marathoner.
Fifty Yard Dash To The Outhouse by Willie Maykit. The Yellow River by I. P. Daly. Seems like the first jokes he ever heard.
What I think about when I think I am running.
You remember his herniated gonad, I hope. Around Christmas, around New Year’s, around a milestone birthday. Okay, so, stayed off the bike and started walking. Never missed a day. As hard as he could for an hour or more. And try not to crap his pants before he could get his ass back home.
Last year he’d had to walk laps around the block. Would he make it?
This a.m. Blue skies. Bright white puffy clouds. Green everywhere. He felt almost good.
Hot. Humid. He felt good enough to run if he could. Look at me go. Still going. Still fun to run after all these years.
The old runner had managed to change his very own personal perception into virtual reality. The only equipment, his mind.
And so he ran on.