Run Like the Breeze
Run like the wind has now become run like the breeze—a little slower, fewer miles, more reserved in my approach. Still, I love the miles I get to run. Endorphins are free and very effective. Left-right strides clear my head and heart and the flow flows.
On a run late last week, I decided to time my first mile based on the mile markers along the trail. I don’t usually time myself anymore, but I did that morning. Twelve minutes. I was feeling old and sluggish, more from the number than from my body. That’s why I don’t usually worry about pace. But just to prove to myself that I am not that old and slow, on the other end of my run I timed myself over a half-mile. I did it in about 4 minutes and 15 seconds. I couldn’t have sustained that for too much longer, but I did feel some sense of redemption. And then I thought about my fastest marathon time being 4 hours and 15 minutes. That was in 2006. I landed back at gratefulness. This runner’s heart is alive!
I miss marathons— the training runs with my husband Darcy, the travel, and the unique experience each one was. I ran seventeen of them between 2004 and 2019. The picture below is from the Kansas City Marathon, our sixth one. We ran it on October 17, 2009, ten months to the day since having a bilateral mastectomy on December 17, 2008. That surgery followed two previous ones—a lumpectomy and a re-excision— as well as four rounds of chemo. Healing and joy ran side-by-side with Darcy and I. Running flat—only in terms of my chest terrain. Everything else was fully alive and rooted in living gratefully.
We had started our first five marathons side-by-side, but parted ways when we needed to in the later miles, each finishing on our own terms. But after my cancer diagnosis and the surgeries and treatment, we made it our goal to finish the KC Marathon together. Darcy was wonderfully and patiently supportive throughout those intense months of all things cancer. He remains so today. What a blessing he is! We finished two other marathons side-by-by side, including the 2011 Sioux Falls Marathon—in the city where we got married in 1998.
I miss marathons, but I would miss running so much more. I would miss the exhilaration of thirty minutes along the scenic stretch of the Mississippi River we live near. I have been thinking more about my sister Mary Jo this week. She died on June 16, 2019. Seven years ago already. At the age of 61. From metastatic breast cancer. She doesn’t get to walk, bike, garden, spend time with her husband and her daughters and their families, which includes seven grandchildren. Her legacy and her spirit live on, but we miss her earthly presence.
I may be slow, but I still get to go-for a run, for a meal out, visiting family and friends. I still get to experience this earthly presence with all of its awe and challenges. As the saying goes—”Today is a gift, spend it well.” Run like the breeze.
