.....running girls

Yogis,
This year I hit several forty-year milestones. Forty years! Wow. That is a long time.

I was married in 1984 on a sunny snow-covered January day. Days after my 22^nd birthday I said ‘I do’ and I continue to do to this day. My oldest son turns forty this year. I’m not sure how that is possible. Watching him with his three brings back memories that feel so recent. And forty years of owning a home.

Then there are friendships. Many also coming up to that 40-year mark as friends are often made during early parenting days when we yearn to connect with others to share the craziness.

Several of those friendships were developed while wearing running shoes.

I ran off and on in high school, but once I had a baby and full-time job, I needed a time of day that was mine with no conflicts where I could move my body. The only time that fit these stringent requirements was 5:30 am.

It began with me and a new friend across the street. Over the next couple years other women with the same needs joined. Four mornings a week we met in front of someone’s house in the dark…..with our dogs…..and ran a few miles. And talked. And laughed. And cried.

We referred to ourselves as the ‘running girls’ and at times we numbered 7 or 8 runners and 5 dogs. You couldn’t miss us as we ran up ‘the big hill’.

We ran through marriages. Divorces. Births and deaths. Illnesses, injuries and joys. We were charged by a beaver, watched a deer leap over a man passing on his motorcycle, were flashed (yuck) and learned where the port-o -johns were. A woman chased us in her car in pajamas to tell us we were too loud and we have many toenail stories.

We even held a holiday gift exchange breakfast each December at 5:30 am.

Year after year we arrived and ran. Did some races but what mattered most was the time spent in quiet mornings. How many people do you get to talk to for a half hour every day? And no matter how much we talked on the run, at the end we stood in a circle and talked some more.

Time and change have scattered us so we don’t see each other much. Yet when we do, the bond created by running through life together awakens instantly.

Friendship,
SARAH