I can't remember when, exactly, I first read Run like you are six. It might have been when she first wrote it, or maybe some months later. What I do know is that I first read it long before I was ever a runner.
I imagine I'm not the only person who read it again this week.
It's still as beautiful as it ever was, but I'm a runner now and now it's different. She writes of running "for the feeling of being faster than everything else" and I get it. She talks of the "pure joy" and I get it. I want to punch the air and say "There's a subtext here that defies language, and I know exactly what it means."
I skipped my run this morning because I wasn't feeling up to it; I felt out of sync all day as a result. Her words kept running through my head. "She's right," I kept thinking. "Pure joy."
Christine, when I run tomorrow — and whenever I run — I promise to savour it, all of it: the joy and the weightlessness and the feeling of being fast. And when that feeling surfaces, I'll be reminded of you and your ever-enduring strength and grace.
Long may you run
long may you run
although these changes
have come
with your chrome heart shining
in the sun
long may you run.