Running for Your Life: Run for Fun

What do you do for fun? Catch ’em all with Pokemon Go (said to be OK for folks, in part, because it gets them out of the house and at least walking around)? Play games on your phone? Zone out before a blasting A/C, watching bad TV?

A casual reader of this blog knows that I’ve been running every other day for going on forty years. I have to admit there are days when, as I’m suiting up to run (in the old days, I was a diehard road warrior, both in heat waves or blizzards; now I opt for the gym treadmill in extreme weather) that I don’t think it’s going to be fun. And some days it just flat out isn’t. When that happens, I put in the time and while I can’t say that I go out the door smiling but my body – from my toes to the top of my head – is voting yes. That was good for now. We’ll have fun the next time.

And you know what, I do. I’m not looking to “Beat Yesterday,” as the rock-solid training types promote. Rather, my simple goal is to smile as I run, to hear the cardinals cheep-cheep in a Prospect Park glen, to see a rainbow after a summer storm, to feel the first sting of a cold shower after an hour of summer running.

Out on a run. A promise of forever, in body, mind and spirit.


Next: Running for Your Life: The Summer Book