For my entire adult life (and maybe even before, if you count my high school XC team) I have found/chosen/created an intentional family through running that has helped me feel seen and known and safe. Currently, my running brothers and sisters are the Trailheads and seejanerun, but at any given time in my life, it was always a running friend - out there on the trails or track or road, with real-life flesh and blood and sweat - “who was there to listen and be sorry with me, to be happy with me, to share all that there is to share.”
So, what does the future hold? At the Freihofer’s Master’s 5k National Road Championships in Albany, NY, I met a 75 year-old runner named Toshiko d’Elia. What an inspiration! Toshi ran a sub 3-hour marathon at age 50, a sub 7:00 mile at age 65, and is still going strong at age 75 … breaking the National 5k 75+ record with a 27:02. I told her a little bit of my story, mentioning how I once participated in an “elite distance runner’s” test study, only to discover the one category where I was near the top was foot plant. Not very glamorous, I laughed, foot plant. Toshi’s eyes glistened like Yoda’s when she prophesied, “You will have perfect foot plant in eternity.”
I left that meeting knowing the full impact of her words. Yes! Yes, Toshi, I know who I am and where I’m going. I will always be the “loser” who tries too hard and who risks having beer cans thrown at her, but I will keep on running – with perfect foot plant – into eternity.
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