It’s often hard to believe, but training for a specific event be it a 5k or a marathon, is fun, even happy. I know the many hours spent on training runs isn’t always easy, like getting up early when the rest of the town is sleeping. However,  I do enjoy the human-quiet, cool summer mornings including of course all those noisy birds (wouldn’t it be great to catalog them someday) and the good smells of plants and trees as I plod along. Not many people around but watch out for the bunnies and ducks!! It would be easy to just jog along at a casual pace but the Steamtown express pulls out of the station on October 7^th and that is the reason for this particular chase. I get to listen to the other guys talk about their training and feel increasingly insecure about my own training. A little trash talking is always fun of course.

Watching the Olympic trials I just shake my head at their ability. When they run it’s like a cartoon with their legs blurred. But before any cynicism starts creeping in (for example noting how media savvy some are, or do I really want to hear about scriptures), I notice their actions at the starting line just before the gun. Some runners talk to themselves; some pace back and forth; and some just stand there looking as calm as Block Island Sound on a hot August day. Now this is where we runners, members of SJAC, and of course the Steamtown Studs come in. We can relate to how they REALLY feel. Most people say “golly they must be nervous…hey would ya  pass me the pork rinds goddamnit!!!”  Any one of us who have competed in a 5k or a marathon KNOW how they feel.  All the effort and hard work and planning and talking and always thinking and being aware of that pending race. Right now it’s someday –  soon  it’s tomorrow that I will be standing at the starting line with my group and all the other runners knowing that this is the time. I like to look around and get a sense of that moment.  We have earned the right to understand how those Olympians feel just before they run.