a few words on running

i have run just about every day for the past year now--a fact that i do not even slightly take for granted. i love running. i would say that it is a kind of worship for me; it is a time when i am able to recognize and enjoy the complexity and intricacy of my body, to be amazed by and enjoy what the human body can do, and to be outside in whatever elements happen to be present. i feel connected to something bigger when i run. i feel healthy and alive. i feel like a commercial right now...

honestly, i don't know what i'd do if i couldn't run. remember that time when the doctor in athens told me i had the knees of a 70 year-old woman and i should never run again? thank you Jesus that he was wrong.

i know that to many of you this doesn't make any sense at all. sometimes it doesn't to me either. it's not that i'm any good at running, or that it doesn't sometimes hurt, or that every run is some amazing out of body experience or something. but i still really like it.

perhaps it is because you don't.

anyway, i'm getting close to the halfway point in my marathon training. that is hard for me to believe yet i know i'll be at the start line before i know it. theoretically i'm supposed to have a huge chunk of money by next week, but i don't. i guess i'm getting closer, as donations from people i really never would have expected to support me are trickling in. that's the funny thing about support: you really never know where it will come from.

i think perhaps i will create a post called "liz's running story of the week." here's my first one:

does anyone remember the time that jenny ran over a squirrel on her bike? well, last week while i was heading out past the red cross, i heard a faint chirping sound coming from beneath the steps. i was heading directly towards the building across a gravel parking lot, and once i reached the driveway of the red cross i would turn left towards the park and my long run for the week. it was insanely early and i was exhausted from the festivities of the preceding days, and so i wasn't what i would call "fully conscious" at the time. as i hit the driveway, the chirping quickened and a small black speck came dashing across the parking lot right at my feet. it all happened so fast i wasn't even alarmed until my foot was coming down directly onto the tiny critter scurrying at me and i realized it was a mole and i was about to crush it. now, i know i'm really big compared to a tiny mole. and also, they're blind. but i confess that i was scared at this moment. it seemed very notable and bizarre that a tiny blind creature in such expansive surroundings would just happen to wind up beneath my quickly moving sauconys. was this some sort of mole suicide? a cry for help? was it a kamikaze mission, or a dare inspired by the rest of the mole community? (there was definitely a lot more chirping going on under those steps...)
regardless (and thankfully), i was able to somehow perform a kind of pirouetting grand leap at the last second that kept the death blow from taking that little life that day.
very graceful.
who knew running could be so perilous to wildlife?
i hope that little guy finally got the help he needed after our encounter.