As my friends and I approach the final days of our training for the Hypothermic Half-Marathon (yes, it's actually called that!), I am reminded that we are also fast approaching an even more significant landmark...our one year anniversary of running together!! Seriously, for an entire year, we have met nearly every Sunday morning to run together. While most of the time, we have met to train for a specific race, I'll be the first to admit that I often get out of bed on a cold Sunday morning for no other reason than to see their smiling faces!!

The past year of running the Ottawa landscapes alongside them feels like I have experienced a lifetime of friendship in their presence. As any runner with tried and true training partners can attest to...friendships created at the hands of running shoes extends far beyond the finish line. We have endured accomplishment and disappointment together. We have endured joy and discouragement. We have experience great loss and hopeful progression. We have endured tears and oh so many laughs. We have endured rain and heat and snow and yes, we have even endured days in which we have given up altogether and just gone out for coffee instead!! Through all of this though, we have endured an unwavering commitment to each other and to our sport that has surpassed any of life's curve balls.

This friendship however, is a by-product of something even bigger than us…a crazy little dream to race the clock and our own limitations. A shared desire to push our bodies to new extremes initially brought us together and has become a goal that we constantly pursue. As our friendship grows, the walls built around us crumble to the ground and show a whole new realm of possibilities. In doing so though, there are times when we catch ourselves wondering time and time again…why?? Why do we run countless miles just so we can do it again with the clock ticking at the finish line??

In honor of my running friends near and far, it seemed appropriate to share this essay that I found that prominently stays glued to our fridge door! I think that it accurately answers that very elusive question that plagues almost every runner when our warm beds gently whisper our names…but the pavement seems to call it from the rooftops!

Why Do I Run?
By George Sheehan

Why do I run? I have written over the years of the benefits I receive from running. Enumerated the physical and mental changes. Listed the emotional and spiritual gains. Charted the improvement that has taken place in my person and my life. What I have not emphasized is how transient these values and virtues are.

With just a little thought, however, it should be evident that physical laws parallel those of the mind and the spirit. We know that the effects of training are temporary. I cannot put fitness in the bank. If inactive, I will detrain in even less time than it took me to get in shape. And since my entire persona is influenced by my running program, I must be constantly in training. Otherwise the sedentary life will inexorably reduce my mental and emotional well-being.

So, I run each day to preserve the self I attained the day before. And coupled with this is the desire to secure the self yet to be. There can be no let up. If I do not run I will eventually lose all I have gained-and my future with it.

Maintenance was a favorite topic of Eric Hoffer. It made the difference, said the former longshoreman, between a country that was successful and one that failed. However magnificent the achievement, without constant care the result was decay.

I know the experience intimately. There is nothing more brief than a laurel. Victory is of the moment. It must be followed by another victory and then another. I have to run just to stay in place.

Excellence is not something attained and put in a trophy case. It is not sought after, achieved and, thereafter, a steady state. It is a momentary phenomenon, a rare conjunction of body, mind, and spirit at one's peak. Should I come to that peak I cannot stay there. I must start each day at the bottom and climb to the top. And then beyond that peak to another and yet another.

Through running I have learned what I can be and do. My body is now sensitive to the slightest change. It is particularly aware of any decline or decay. I can feel this lessening of the "me" that I have come to think of myself.

Running has made this new me. Taken the raw material and honed it and delivered it back ready to do the work of a human being. I run so I do not lose the me I was yesterday and the me I might become tomorrow.