What's your Running Story?

I found this essay a number of years ago - and it means as much to me now as it did then. I would love to give credit where due - it was written by an Eric Moon. However now when I Google his name I come up with some Korean Internet sensation!! If the real Eric Moon ever reads this - thanks - this is a beautiful piece of writing!

"I have been running toward something, running for something, running with and for someone or running from something. I have always been running.

Not always the fastest but I have, to my credit, won a few races.

Not always the longest runner or the strongest of all, but I have run a long way and felt very strong.

I have run in the rain for the joy of it. I have run in the sun and felt the power of it. I have run for the tape, run against the clock, I have run with thousands and run with only myself for company. I have run around and around the track over and over again and run with no idea where I was going. I have run for no particular reason to any particular place. I have run to help my heart’s efficiency; I have run because my heart ached. I have run fast and felt more alive than ever and I have run to bury or fight something deep within. I have run when I knew I needed to and I have run when I knew I shouldn’t have. I have loathed running and I have praised running. I have run for a personal record and made it and I have run giving everything I had and come up just a bit short. I have run and let laughter and storytelling roll the miles away. I have felt the pounding of every single step in silent solitude. I have run with 5 year olds and I have run with state champions. I have run with many who have needed my advice and many who did not. I have run with those who I have changed forever and I have run with those who changed me. I have run enough to know that we sometimes feel like an old pair of shoes and sometimes we feel like new ones. I have run enough to know the difference between a hard, cold head wind and a brisk steady wind at our back. I have run enough to know that once you get out a certain distance you had better be able to get back. I have had runner friends who have poured out their guts to me about my place in their life, some who just said thanks or said nothing at all.

I am simply a runner who has failed and succeeded, faded and surged, hoped, dreamed.

Running has given me my greatest ideas, thoughts and moments of joy. To feel the “flow”, that feeling of peace, joy, timelessness, focus and clarity is an integral part of the human experience.

I don’t know exactly what you need to achieve well-being in your life but I do know that running is helping me achieve mine. That’s my story… what’s yours?"

Eric Moon