running inspiration |

Why spend your only life hopin’?
What a torture to be always blue, darlin’.
Why spend your only life waiting
To do what you know you can do?

-Josh Ritter in “Why”

I saw Josh Ritter for the first time seven years ago. He was opening for Rufus Wainwright at the time, and needless to say, the whole show was amazing. While I absolutely love Rufus, what struck me in particular about Josh was his passion. It looked like he was having a blast. It was probably the first time I saw and recognized someone following their dream in real time. I witnessed this again: once in Barcelona on the face of a dancer and again in Capri, Italy from an gentlemanly Italian shoemaker. The common thread was pure joy. These people were completely and totally losing themselves in the joy of their work. It was no surprise that I saw the same passion the other night when I watched Josh’s Madison show at the Overture.

Certainly, it’s a rare thing to experience, but it’s something I’m lucky enough to find when running. When you’re on mile 9 of a long run and you can’t help but smile, something is going right.

Are you following your dream?

Ciao!

Sarah

Wow, was it great to be back in Chicago! My sister and I went down to the city for Easter weekend and took the opportunity to run through Grant Park and the Lake Front Trail. I started training for distance races about nine months ago, so I never ran in downtown Chicago when I lived in the city. Now I realize what I missed! The day was a gorgeous (though cloudy) with temps in the 50s. For two girls coming from 30 degree weather in Wisconsin, it was heaven! Below are some of my favorite pictures from the run (and some of my favorite quotes from one of my favorite books):

“You don’t have to be fast. But you’d better be fearless.”
― Christopher McDougall, Born to Run

“That was the real secret of the Tarahumara: they’d never forgotten what it felt like to love running. They remembered that running was mankind’s first fine art, our original act of inspired creation.”

“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.”

“…there was some kind of connection between the capacity to love and the capacity to love [running]. The engineering was certainly the same: both depended on loosening your grip on your own desires, putting aside what you wanted and appreciating what you’ve got, being patient and forgiving and… undemanding…maybe we shouldn’t be surprised that getting better at one could make you better at the other.”