Try The Meditation Of The Trail, Just

Distance Running Was Revered Because It Was Indispensable; It Was The Way We Survived And Thrived And Spread Across The Planet. You Ran To Eat And To Avoid Being Eaten; You Ran To Find A Mate And Impress Her, And With Her You Ran Off To Start A New Life Together. You Had To Love Running, Or You Wouldn't Live To Love Anything Else. And Like Everything Else We Love-everything We Sentimentally Call Our 'passions' And 'desires'-it's Really An Encoded Ancestral Necessity. We Were Born To Run; We Were Born Because We Run.

Try The Meditation Of The Trail, Just Walk Along Looking At The Trail At Your Feet And Don't Look About And Just Fall Into A Trance As The Ground Zips By," Kerouac Wrote. "trails Are Like That: You're Floating Along In A Shakespearean Arden Paradise And Expect To See Nymphs And Fluteboys, Then Suddenly You're Struggling In A Hot Broiling Sun Of Hell In Dust And Nettles And Poison Oak... Just Like Life.

You Don't Stop Running Because You Get Old, You Get Old Because You Stop Running.

But Yeah, Ann [trason] Insisted, Running Was Romantic; And No, Of Course Her Friends Didn't Get It Because They'd Never Broken Through. For Them, Running Was A Miserable Two Miles Motivated Solely By Size 6 Jeans: Get On The Scale, Get Depressed, Get Your Headphones On, And Get It Over With. But You Can't Muscle Through A Five-hour Run That Way; You Have To Relax Into It, Like Easing Your Body Into A Hot Bath, Until It No Longer Resists The Shock And Begins To Enjoy It.

The Tarahumara Would Party Like This All Night, Then Rouse Themselves The Next Morning To Face Off In A Running Race That Could Last Not Two Miles, Not Two Hours, But Two Full Days. According To The Mexican Historian Francisco Almada, A Tarahumara Champion Once Ran 435 Miles, The Equivalent Of Setting Out For A Jog In New York City And Not Stopping Till You Were Closing In On Detroit.