What the heck was that!?

Over the course of the last week I have experienced my first earthquake and hunkered down to battle the remnants of Hurricane Irene.  Who would have ever thought that us Marylanders would have to endure such a strange and hectic week, but hey it's been one crazy summer so I wasn't completely blown away. What I find interesting is that how endurance running can produce the feelings and emotions that are similar to those found from natural disasters.  Now I will make it clear these are two completely different monsters.  One, we pay good hard earned money to have a miserably great time while on the other hand natural disasters are uncontrollable circumstances where lives are taken and life is disrupted.  Clearly they are two different things but still from what I find there is a similar feeling.

Both exploit our vulnerability.  I've yet to run a race whether it was a marathon or a 50 miler where there wasn't a short period of time that I became vulnerable.  In my case it's generally my emotions.  No I don't become a blubbering crying idiot but I often find gratefulness and importance whether it's certain people in my life or memories I have collected.  I can honestly say that last week even though the earthquake was minor and the hurricane was less significant than forecasted I had similar feelings.  I immediately thought about my loved ones, I immediately thought about things that are important to me, and I immediately thought without fear there's no hope.

What I learned from this last week is that not only does my running allow me to eat a lot it allows me to remain calm in tense situations.  Running has strengthened my patience, it allows me to remain calm and I constantly compare it to life.  If I have a string of a few tough days I relate it to parts of a race where you have those few tough miles.  After you push through you will be rewarded.  Things always have a way of getting better, to me it's the only option.  This leads me to my favorite word, persevere.

As described by the dictionary persevere is defined as continuing in a course of action even in the face of difficulty.  I find this in my running and in this past week I saw it in our region.  And as Joe Dirt says, "Ya gotta keep on keepin' on".

On the running calendar - this weekend another 20 miler...Freedom Run is one month away!