According to the latest data, foot racing made a big comeback in 2023, and the trend seems to herald a robust 2024, as well. This, after several years of Covid-caused cancellations, delays, and controlled race re-openings. 

This reemergence of races speaks to the desire for people across the running spectrum to rejoin like-minded adherents not just in training, but in competition, too, if only to challenge their own limitations. 

Yet, despite the data, there remains a staunch belief in the non-running public that such exercise is fatuous, at best, and perhaps even ill advised. 

This all leads to a question I have often asked at races through the years: what is it about running that people who don’t run don’t get? Because to the uninitiated, running is often summed up with “why would you? It looks horrible!”

True enough, running below the elite level can resemble Elaine Benes dancing (See Seinfeld, Season 8, Episode 4 “Little Kicks”).  It can also turn toenails black before causing them to fall off; make muscles ache and feet blister. And, in the absence of proper lubricants, it can chafe thighs and make nipples bleed (a delicate, mostly male affliction). All which gives one pause regarding racing. “What’s the entry fee for this?”

Yet runners wear such corruptions of the flesh as badges of courage, war wounds, hard-earned battle scars from having prepared for, then overcome, the myriad challenges set forth between starter’s command and finishing line. 

Accordingly, running’s gift is less in its watching than in its doing, where one often discovers a developing self-awareness: “I didn’t think I could do it. Then I did do it. What else don’t I think I can do?”

Anyone who runs to the point of fitness knows that running is more than simply an exercise for our physical form. In its hold and rhythms many runners experience a mental acuity and spiritual communion unrealized while not at pace.

For many, running becomes a self-contained decompression chamber to deal with the stresses of the day, and races the beckoning light to keep them motivated. 

Thus, do we run for exercise, but also to compete, run on the trails, as well as Main Street.

We run to remember, run to forget. We run to recover and, at times, with regret. We run to consider, then run to decide. We run for glory, we run to hide.

We run to feel joy, run to inflict pain. We run, swear to God, so as not to go insane.

We run for time, then run at pace. Most often we train, but sometimes we race.

We run to attain, run to reflect, we run as a reminder what not to neglect.

We run to detach. We run to engage. We run to offset our advancing age.

We run for place, as we run through space. We run to experience – call it a runner’s grace.

Truth is, we run when we can, then run when we must. We run to be alive, ‘till time turns us to dust.

For moments of pure clarity, there is no greater source. Best of luck in 2024! 

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