A New Name For Courage.
It is winter and running motivation is not in great abundance for a lot of us at this time of year. In an effort to encourage all of us, I have taken the liberty of posting another true story; this is from my running book. Enjoy!
It was the morning of a race and the weather had turned quite cold. Snow still lay on the ground in patches. I found myself wondering if I had made a mistake to consider running on this cold morning, but as soon as the race started I was glad I was running it. In spite of the cold weather, I enjoyed the race and crossed the finish line with a smile on my face. After the race, runners stood huddled together; backs turned to the wind. It was cold. That stiff breeze didn't help any.
I grabbed a cup of coffee and started talking with a few people. Almost every runner clutched a cup filled with hot coffee or hot chocolate. The wisps of steam coming from the cups created a foggy cloud that hovered around the group and the cold air produced vapor as each one spoke. The majority of runners were engaged in animated conversation and most of the discussions revolved around the race we had all just completed. Comments about how cold it had been, how steep several portions of the course were and how well they had run on this cold morning could be heard from where I stood. The five-mile course had been a tough one, compounded by the extremely cold weather. I had run a little slower than I had hoped for, but still finished well, all things considered. I put my warm-up suit on over my running clothes and then I grabbed another cup of hot coffee. I held the cup with both hands in an attempt to keep them warm. I started moving toward the finish line so I could watch the last runners finish. There weren't many, but I could see a few stragglers coming down the last stretch of the course. I'm sure they were glad that the finish line was finally in sight.
After a few minutes I thought all runners had crossed the finish line and I was just about to turn away when I saw him. Far away, barely visible, a runner was heading in. I heard the race director say, "Here he is, last runner coming in." "That's great," the timer responded, "I'm freezing out here!"
The lone figure appeared to be barely moving as he shuffled towards the finish line. At first I thought I
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