More Then A Feeling

Like a lot of my friends, this winter is getting me down.  I am so sick of snow and cold temperatures, tired of my injury keeping me from running and worried about my next race in 6 weeks (eek).  I have missed running, it's more then the endorphin's runners get, or that runners high, it's part of my life.  Not running is like a part of you is missing, something is not quite right and there is nothing you can do about it.  

Looking for motivation and inspiration one day I came across a book review of  A Life Without Limits: A World Champion's Journey by Chrissie Wellington on the From Couch to Ironwoman blog.  I want to read that book, maybe it was what I needed.  I went to my online bookstore to order it but it was not out in paperback yet, it will be next month so I decided to wait. 

The book for April was The Long Run by Matt Long so I decided to read that one first.  Matt is a FDNY firefighter who ran marathons and did an Ironman before he was hit by a bus on December 22, 2005.  He was given a 5% chance of survival and told he would probably not run again.  The book details his story and his recovery, the good, the bad and very bad.  All through his recovery he had one underlying thought, he wanted to run again.  Until he completed the NYC Marathon again, his recovery would not be complete.  He was an athlete before the accident and he needed to be one again, for himself, because it was part of his life and he did not feel complete without it.  One line struck me when describing his life before the accident..."Everything I have, I worked for.... none of it came easy.  If it had, everyone would be out doing Ironmans."

Most of my friends are not natural born athletes, we work at it, we work darn hard.  We struggle, we get injured, we have good runs and bad runs and days we wonder why we run.  We run for a variety of reason, most for health and weight loss or maintenance, some for the medals and the PRs the drive them to keep training, others because it's a part of their lives.  We keep at it, we keep pushing and training and working, it is not easy, giving up is easy, running and training is hard.  I run for all these reasons, slowly running and training for triathlons have become as much of my daily routine as brushing my teeth.  Matt's book has re-ignited the fire and passion for training...I am hoping this fire can help melt the snow since Mother Nature sure does not seem willing to do so.