The Journey Continues

I believe I have been a runner all my life. As a young boy I was very active and have memories of early school years in gym class playing roller derby(without rollerskates, just running in circles) and always being the last person on my team left with one other guy on the other team left who incidentally was a year older. Throughout my younger years and through to my university years I carried on with running because I enjoyed the direct benefits to working hard, the lack of reliance on team mates, and the competition within myself and against others, and as well the camaraderie between distance runners before, after and sometimes during races. As my training and career became more developed and running took up a vast majority of my time and energies I increasingly became weary of the one sided way my life had become which had cost me a wonderful companion, but had also brought me some great success in the first half of 2005. Following this success the scales tipped and I lost my motivation to train with as much vigor as I did before, not necessarily because I had burned myself out physically but because my life was extremely unbalanced. I virtually stopped running altogether and instead of balancing my life out I just tipped the balance to working very hard in the social services sector and taking an interest in my own spirituality and culture. Of course this imbalance eventually made me unhappy because I was too busy to train, and the intensity of the work burnt me out no less than twice in 6 months. At the end of this 6 months I was presented with the opportunity to join a group of native youth from South Dakota and Minnesota who were running from Vancouver to Anchorage Alaska. This group had organized a run called a Prayer Run for World Peace(details at www.wolakota.org) I joined the group near my hometown in Kitwanaga and ran with them to Anchorage to arrive for World Peace Prayer Day on the Summer Solstice June 21. The significance of this run for me was a complete change in my reasons for running. I had been tired of competing and training as an individual, I felt my life as a runner was very self centered and was helping no one but myself. From as far back as I can remember I have felt as though my life is meant to give to some greater good. Because of this belief and how I viewed my choice of being a runner I was ready to quit running altogether so that my energies could be expended on more honorable means. This Prayer Run would save me as a runner...