The Trouble with Jogging...

"The trouble with jogging is that the ice falls out of your glass." ~Martin Mull
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The running track at Colourful University is an interesting place around the lunch-hour. I see all sizes and types and motivations, and I try and imagine why they're all there.

There are runners. And walkers. And sprinters. And waddlers. People who run as though the action is a part of their genetic makeup, easily and gracefully. People who run as though they are doing so against insurmountable odds, and as though at any moment, they might keel over. Easy breathers. Panters. The young. The old. Students. Professors. Middle-aged men in their jeans and polo shirts, trying to walk away from fear of the triple-bypass their fathers and grandfathers had. People running away from scars that remind them of their own fragility. Women walking with friends they only see at the lunch hour, puffing out conversation between tired breathing. They'll go back to offices and eat their lunches during the first minutes of the afternoon workload.

One lone Athlete from the track and field team has chosen this time to work with his coach. His running is different than anybody else's... more like flying. Or dancing. He's the only one whose actions can be described as Beautiful. He watches the rest of us with mild interest, and I wonder if he's thinking back to the first time he ran any great distance and felt as though his lungs were going to burst.

I'm not sure I enjoy running. I don't like the feeling of being out of breath, of aching muscles (worse now than they were this morning), of creeping sweat. But I enjoy watching what's going on around me on the running track at Colourful University.

The view is one answer (of many) to the question of what life looks like.