To Running, With Love

To Running, With Love

Hey, Running… I’ve had a good run today.

Now the sweet afterglow of the effort besets me,

Delightfully. O, how I love to run!

When tired, I only long to recover,

So I can run again. Thank you,

For enriching my life.

What a pale, slack, physically dull thing

My life would have been without you!

The youngster – eager and nimble, if not tireless;

The teenager – dreamy and plodding, but trying so hard;

The college jogger – joyfully stubborn against the plateau;

The two-time marathoner – determined, but talentless.

O, I have chased you down through the years,

With a lover’s ardor. For the purity of the effort;

For the deep satisfaction; for the health and well-being,

Ever with me; but, most of all, for the sense of being wildly,

Physically alive; like a gazelle – on the good days,

If thinking, “Why am I doing this?” on the bad ones.

Be not proud for the love of some breathtaking runner –

Some Bjorklund, Tollefson, Klecker, Nelson, Timm or Hoag –

To whom you gave so much.

But for the average runner, who yet chases you for a lifetime,

Limited and flat-legged much of the time –

Is not enduring love without a gift love, indeed?

At times my delight in you has been Heavenly,

Madly running on the shore of the sea,

On forest paths or desert trails, beneath majestic peaks,

Crazy for the beauty and the thrill of it all,

Striding along easily, almost like a real runner.

But, as for the last 200 of the 800 – How could you?

Should I thank you for restraining me,

When I loved you too much –

And you brought me crashing down –

(Though I hated you then)?

Or for the hard dreariness of the training? Or the injuries?

Or for running in the summer heat and winter cold?

Thank you for the memories of a thousand races

I carry through life, as one remembers

A child growing up. The happy herd of runners

Breaking from the starting line,

At the crack of the gun.

And for the runners I have known and loved.

And thanks for being debarred from thinking,

“Later, this will feel like Hell with the fires lit.”

And yet, somehow, still mad to run the next race.

Especial thanks for helping me through dark hours,

When all that would lift my spirits was the thought –

“It’s okay – later I will run.”

And now, at last, you are slipping from my embrace,

More and more, as the years sprint past.

But – Is this not love? – I love you more,

Not less, for my failing legs and plodding runs.

So, thank you, Running, for the runs, and the sweet fatigue,

Until I can run again.

© 2016 Pat O’Regan