How Sweet It Is

If people were possessed by reason, running marathons would not work.  But we are not creatures of reason.  We are creatures of passion.

Marathon morning and coach looked at me with the biggest grin on his face. He said out of all the days he has lived, there have only been 33 of those days that he has had the privilege to run a marathon.

What if you could experience the thing you love most in this life for the first time again? Like falling in love for the first time. Like watching your favorite movie for the first time. Or even like crossing your first finish line again.

I have been running races for 12 years. That finish line “first” seems long gone. The first marathon is done. The first Boston qualifying time has been achieved.

It seems as if the firsts are what we live for. I think we should live for the starts and for the finishes.

This is why I will never forget the words that my coach had said that morning. I don’t know whether it was the insane chills that I got from the way he looked at life or the fact that he always knows what to say at the right time.

                You have to get up every morning excited to see the sun rise on your run like you’ve never seen those colors before. You have to pour love into life like you don’t know when you’ll be able to love like that again. And, you have to appreciate the rare days in a lifetime when you get to reach any finish line.

                How sweet it is to be a runner.

To be surrounded by people at a starting line who want to take a “someday I want to” and make it a reality. To be in the company of people who have run 33+ marathons and that still cherish how amazing it is to be there in that moment. Even sweeter to be the one who gets to stand in the middle and share the memories with both.

                There will be days when you want to quit and there will be times when it seems harder than it seemed yesterday. There will always be the days when you should be so incredibly thankful for the life. The runner life. Yeah, the life of firsts. But, the life of rare and absolutely incredible starting and finish lines.