Weekend update

This past Saturday on my long run I was letting my mind just think freely like I usually do. I think about just everything - family, work, life, religion, etc. I started thinking about the previous year and why I started running in the first place. Normally on my runs I don't think about running but it has become a big part of who I am. And that's when it hit me -- running is a part of who I am.

It used to be that running was a means to an end. My end -- weight loss. As I inch closer and closer to my weight loss goals I'm realizing that running is no longer about me losing weight but about who I am as a person. One year ago I would have never though that I'd be taking up the challenge to run a marathon...but here I was on my long run thinking about who am I as a person and how running has changed me. Not just from a physical sense, but from an emotional and mental well being perspective.

When I run I feel something deep within me finding something that was missing before...a connection with who I am as a living creature. A connection with what's ingrained into my DNA as a human -- to run is to live.

The following quote comes from the book "Born to Run." It struck a chord with me when I came across it this weekend:

To run an antelope to death, Lieberman determined, all you have to do is scare it into a gallop on a hot day. “If you keep just close enough for it to see you, it will keep sprinting away. After about ten or fifteen kilometers’ worth of running, it will go into hyperthermia and collapse.” Translation: if you can run six miles on a summer day then you, my friend, are a lethal weapon in the animal kingdom.

If you can run six miles on a summer day then you are a lethal weapon in the animal kingdom. How's that for a connection to the past. A connection to what I was born to do, born to be. In my 14 miler this weekend between listening to my breathing and my footfalls as I crossed over the Missouri river it became clear to me: Running is not a means to an end. Running is PRIMAL!