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| Navigational Art and Directions By Colleen Yorke, © 2015. |
We all have our personal
motivations and stories. As for me, growing up in Germany, I was first introduced to running some two decades ago (for the full story visit The Point of Running). I would run here and there, through a primeval forest close to my home, dark with trees dripping with green moss, my footsteps muffled by leaves and pines blanketing the ground. Pockets of
ferns unfurled through it all, and occasionally a gleaming mushroom, bravely
made its stand. Peaks and valleys. The central mountain in the landscape of
my life. After a very short morning run, I felt alive, vindicated, and ready for
anything.
Growing up in a family of
competitive swimmers, I was the "fish out of water". Years and many runs
later, we may come to realize that it is not about running faster or longer, but about who we run with. I discovered the beauty of
sharing my runs with like-minded people. Whether
it is training for my first Marathon, and even running it, drinking a
beer post-run or driving 200 miles for a muddy 6 miles’ run - I find myself on the road, exploring, observing, noting and
breathing in the life and smells of a city I love. I run the streets of Los Angeles,
get lost, and find myself again.
Instead of
stressing about everything we are missing or everything we should be doing, we go for a run and remember why we fell in love with running in the
first place.
