Let's get one thing straight...

Life is sweet...
I am feeling in shape and uninjured for the first time in about two years, and that uncontrollable love-hate relationship with my sport is currently weighing more towards love. For those reasons, and others, I could go off right now with passionate musings about running, but I'd like to use my first entry to just introduce myself.

My name is Shannon, and I began running almost 7 years ago as a freshman on my high school team, and I've been hooked since. Mind you, that's not the same thing as loving what I do all the time. I've experienced very high highs, including state medals from my high school cross country career, and very low lows, such as a two year streak of injuries and cross training in college.

Like most runners, I've struggled with the question, Why do this? Usually, these self-interegations occur during high pressure races, gut-wrenching workouts, or when waking up for early morning runs. It torturned me to have no idea why I did what I did. Why run? Why put myself on a strict training regimen? Why bother? Why was it worth it?

I recently came across this quote by Dr. June Singer: "Is it sufficient that you have learned to drive the car, or shall we see what is under the hood? Most people go through life without ever knowing." I hate not having the answers, especially the answer to why something is the way it is. It's nearly impossible for a serious runner to continue a strict training regimen blindly, emotionlessly. We can't possibly do this to ourselves, just because, can we? I cannot say that I ever found the answer to why I run. Does anybody know for sure? It seems a little too ambiguous to put into words (although Anton seems to make a good jab at it in the quote at the bottom of my blog...) I will tell you this though: Once I ruled out the theory that I run to win, I became much more at peace with not having the exact answer.

Winning races can be an exhilirating, rewarding experience. It helps us to set goals for ourselves and progress. Don't get me wrong, if I had the ability to win the NCAA championships next year, I'd jump on that, and I would be overjoyed. But when it really comes down to it, though winning can be a great motivation, it is ultimately hollow in meaning.

Running, however, is not. There's something about the fluidity of it...The feeling of efficiency can be enough to make one giddy...The experience of fleet footedness - exhilirating...The decisiveness to overcome and withstand whatever pain, obstacles and conditions that may come - empowering.

Running has taught me to feel emotion, and to ignore emotion. It's taught me patience. It's dealt me cards I didn't deserve, and I've learned to swallow hard to move on. Running clears my mind, and brings me back to basics.

I am not a coach, a champion of any sort, a professional, and at this point, I'm not even fast. But through my running experience thus far, I feel I have a pretty mature understanding of what I do. I look forward to blogging with some of you other runners out there...