the Way of the Turtle

"And what did I learn from running eighty thousand miles and hundreds of races, being the first to cross the finish line and once or twice not crossing it at all, those runs on icy roads in winter storms and those cool fall mornings when the air was ripe with the smell of grapes, my feet softly ticking against the pavement?

"I learned I was alive and it felt good. God, it feels so good."

-from "Running with Time" by Roger Hart, in How Running Changed My Life