Thursday, February 6, 2014

Pavement and Prayers

We're running just as fast as we can... which, in my case, isn't saying a whole lot.

Driven by admiration for my friends and colleagues who have the discipline to run, I've decided that this is the year I'm running my first (and, quite possibly, only) marathon.  I want to have that discipline.  I want to know the parameters of my own capabilities.  I want to know what it is to balance my life sufficiently that I have time and energy for those long training runs.  I want to know if I can do it.  Maybe that's a little petulant sounding, but I have found the greatest developments in life tend to happen when I take a flying leap over the walls of what I previously knew was possible.

I'll be running the Colorado Marathon on May 4th (Star Wars day!), 2014.  It will be probably a little comic to watch (I run like an ostrich... a very, very slow ostrich), and it definitely won't be pretty, if my training thus far is any indication.  But I'll finish.

And as I go through those 26.2 miles on race day and the hundreds of training miles to be run before that, I'd like to take you all with me.  In spirit - don't worry, I'm not going to try to make you run.  So (also inspired by a friend), I'd like to commit each mile of this journey to a different prayer.  Whether you follow the same faith as me or a different tradition or no formal faith at all, I want to meditate and pray for anything on your minds and hearts.  It can be serious or silly, full of thanks or righteously indignant confusion, for yourself or someone you love or a situation with people you've never met.  Just a way for us to run side-by-side on a particular level of consciousness. 

So just send me a note (laura.lyter@gmail.com) if you'd like it to be confidential, or leave a comment below and I'll bring you with on my next training run.  Thanks in advance for joining me in spirit.  Here's to the pavement and the prayers!