Finding Grace

The most rewarding thing about running might be the most intangible.

- Christopher Michel

THE OTHER DAY at lunch, I went out for a run, as I often do, with a group of friends and co-workers: my running buddies. They’re good runners, and they’re better than me. I started out with them, but at some point I began trailing behind. I could have pushed myself to keep up, but I don’t always want to, and so I let them get away. When they got far enough ahead of me, they stopped to wait. They always do this, and I always encourage them to keep going. “I know how to get back,” I said. They waited anyway. They are kind.

When I first fell in love with running, I had only two goals: getting faster and going further. Completing a half marathon raised the question of running a full one. When I trained for a race, it was to PB. In this way, running became a maths problem: distance divided by time.