Running for Eliot and Yeats

This past week, we had some really great poems that spoke a lot about the way one should live their life. Yeats and Eliot both suggested to readers through their works that we should slow down and enjoy all that life has to give to us, but not to slow to the point of over-thinking things and missing out on the real meaning. Today, I got the perfect application for that principle. Today I ran the the OKC Bombing Memorial Marathon, on the 5K relay team. This should be the point where I also mention that I am not by any means athletic, and I didn't train prior to the event (smart, I know). At 5 AM, when I got downtown, it was freezing cold (esp. in my pink shorts), and it was raining out. My bus got stopped on our way to the checkpoint, got lost, and almost didn't make it in time for me to catch our first runner and make the exchange, and then I had 3.1 miles ahead of me, wind in my face, and hill like crazy....and yet it was SO much fun!! For the past two years I have done this event, not because running is my thing, but because I love what I take away from it. I run beside nearly 1,500 different strangers, and you befriend people along the way. I had such a blast joking with perfect strangers about bad bus schedules, angry steroid-crazy runners, and the crappy weather that after awhile, you forget about being cold and uncomfortable and really focus on the good parts of the race. Making it into a positive experience, and finding that meaning in such special events is, I think, what these authors were striving to present. The best part of all today? I ran my leg in about 34-36 minutes, which is under my time from last year. Good times.