Final

__ Running, Trees, and Me __ I remember the first race that I ran in deKoevend Park, the Morris Vogel Invite (Woot MoVo!). Before the race is a time of smells: Icy-Hot, B.O., and unwashed short-shorts. At the start, all I can visualize is the road ahead. The empty ground in front of the runners is high noon in a ghost town, a post-apocalyptic wasteland. A no-man’s-land of some far away battlefield -- so empty yet so full of tension, the kind that shivers down your spine. BANG! The gun goes off and suddenly that space is filled with what seems like thousands of bodies, twisting and elbowing for the slightest lead. It’s hot and still for the first mile. The light trickles through the cottonwoods, making everything golden. Things go like this until I hit the first water jump. Suddenly I am cool and refreshed -- for about three seconds that is. At this moment I realize my mouth which was like cotton, longing for water of any kind, now tastes like some absolutely awful combination of mud and fish, and my feet that were so hot now are cool, but spurt water with every step and weigh roughly 100 lbs. Running in deKoevend Park has a lot to do with overcoming (pain, weakness, frustration) and overcoming is the key to life. The second mile then spurs questions like //why on earth do hundreds of kids sign up to spend their Friday afternoons doing this//? Otherwise, it goes eerily similar to the first, complete with water jump and ridiculously large hill. The next thing I remember then is the finish line, the big shebang, the climax. Everything I’ve been doing for the past approximately 24 minutes is about to come to fruition. All I can see is the guy in front of me -- tunnel vision at its best. The screaming of fans and friends dies away until all I can hear is my breathing and thundering footsteps; a rush of endorphins covers the pain. Time moves fast yet so slow, until I’m in the chute, and it hits me I did it! And then of course comes the “aghhh! Legs on fire” and the occasional “I’m gonna puke!” After the race these things all seem to fade. But reflecting on it, all this leads me to remember an entirely different time in the park. It’s toward the end of the season now, and it’s gotten cold. Those golden leaves are gone, replaced by snowflakes and icy wind. Just a workout, a simple practice, but the ghosts of those emotions I felt during the race still hang on the place and on me like tinsel on a Christmas tree, weeks after Christmas is come and gone. These emotions make time stand still. And though it seems strange, it’s right then that I start to listen to the park, to hear what it has to say to me. And its lessons go far beyond simple running. The trees speak to me, with lessons of endurance. “Learn from us” they say. “ We are the same; we both know joy and pain, strength and weakness. We preserve through the good and the bad”. Most importantly, the trees remind me “the world that surrounds us may be hard, and may lead to pain, but as long as there is willingness to move on, to do what is required of us and what is right, then these hard times will not last. They come and go like the seasons; this is nature and this is life”. I learn from them that, as long as I continue on, as long as I endure through all, I will gain strength, patience, and endurance. And as long as this is true, Running for me will be a passion, the example by which I live my life. And it’s that passion, that drive that everyone needs to make their life worth living -- whether it is found in running or any multitude of ways. Despite my complaints, my pain, and my doubt, there is always the shot at victory, at doing better than I did last week and better than I ever have before. There is always going to be room from improvement, goals to set, and anything and everything to overcome. But as long as there is that passion, and as long as there is the will to endure struggle, then life is worth living and life will be lived to the fullest. Carpe Diem!