Why do we run on a day like this

I started running in college on the flat, cool plains of the Midwest. Lacing up and heading out on a run was never very hard.

I became a runner during the summer after my sophomore year, when I worked on a golf course through a long hot summer in Orlando, Florida. It was a summer that had fires and I can still recall the burning smell in the air as I mowed fairways and greens. I have never sweated more in my life and I used to come home in the afternoon, strip off my shirt, pull on some running shoes and run a few miles in the 90 degree/90% humidity of Central Florida summers. When I dragged my way home I would take off my shoes and socks and fall into the pool.

On Saturday morning, five runners and a walker started out on a run that promised to be as uncomfortable as those afternoon runs in Orlando. When you run on a day like Saturday you never get to that runner's high that we all seek most of the year. On these runs everything is heavy: our breath, our clothes, our legs, and even our thoughts. Just like those runs in Orlando, there was nothing easy about Saturday's run. It is the hard runs that make us runners. It is the hard times that make us human.