...a ritual that heralds in a new day...

I seem to have been getting overly political in my posts so just for some balance, here's an update on my running.

I have been getting over a knee injury over the last 2 months. I finished one of the best runs ever and as I started walking home a pain quickly started in one of my knees. It gave me all kinds of problems with stairs and even now going down stairs hurts. I started running again a couple of weeks back, nothing serious, 2 and 3 milers.

This morning it was bracing. Frost and frozen with a heavy mist in the air, the weather that I love to run in. 5.45 and I was out the door, music in my ears and the coldness heavy in my lungs. I always struggle with the first 1/2 mile, my breathing is hard and I don't settle into my pace until close to a mile, after that it is a joy to be alive. Just me and the streetlights and the cloak of darkness between them.

Halfway into the run takes me onto the canal, away from the light and into my own world. Panting breaths exhaled as a stream of warmth from deep inside, muscles working easily, keeping the cold at bay and running into the chill, that icy burn across my chest, at odds with the heat of the run. I am truly alone, music in my ears and above that the bird songs, a welcome to the sun that is still an hour away.
Uneven ground beneath my feet, the crunch of leaves and squelch of the occasional puddle, just my thoughts and the joy of being alive, to feel the life coursing through my veins, blood pumping, knowing the miracle of this human form.

I am never closer to heaven than on particular runs, everything aligns and the pain, the beauty and the world open up one bit more and you understand a fraction more. It gives you hope and love.
There is a new swan on the canal, a new friend to greet on my way past. Running down the toe path into the light of the town, beneath bridges and barges, seemingly endless but all too familiar as I reach the canal basin and the end, still in darkness but with the expectation of a rising sun lightening the mist.

This is what running is about, it is more than an exercise, it is an essential part of life, a ritual that heralds in a new day, a worship of the morning, the new sun and a greeting to the creatures that are there to see it all with me.

Good morning World!