Michael Lebowitz shares the journey that brought him home and the promises he made to himself at the beginning of 2011.

12/31

Under the heading of “I’ll show you mine if you show me yours,” what are your New Year’s resolutions for 2011 for the runners in the crowd, the writers, and the peeps with dreams and schemes and other such that might bring them closer to the light in which they believe?

Post them or keep them to yourself BUT all the best of everything and may this year be a year in which you get closer to to the light of that in which you believe for you and those you love.
Here are mine:

1. turn 65 years old
2.  lose 65 lbs
3.  run a 65 mile run in my 65th year
4.  make a plan, follow the plan consistently, listen to the coaches
5.  get to the start line of every event
6.  keep a consistent journal of the journey: pretraining, training, and running.
7.  write the book, take the pictures
8.  Remember, everyday, to be grateful for the gift of being alive and to express it…
9.  in an act of kindness for which no thank you is needed.
10.  take a step, take another step, breathe, repeat.12/31-part 2

comin’ 2011
eyes open, not sleepin’, listening to the wind, to the beating of my heart:

Came home to America nearly 10 years ago. When it got hard to stay clean where I was, I hunkered down and weathered the storms. I had a lot of help from my friends. My journey was only half begun, despite whatever the chronological clock may say. Fixin’ to begin again, I put in my time, paid the price of my waiting, finally moved back to this place of big weather and ancient trees. If you don’t start the race, you don’t run it; let your reach, your dreams you might say, exceed your grasp “…else what is a heaven for?” said the poet. Take as it comes, do the best with what you’ve got, breath in and out, repeat. Believe in love and kindness, stay steady and keep on keepin’ on …and so it went until I opened my eyes on a new morning in a new year. Time to light out and look all around.

Photo Credit

“Genesis…A New Day.”  Flickr Creative Commons.  ©All rights reserved by ~ SaxMan ~

A Joni Mitchell classic reminds Michael Lebowitz that running doesn’t need to be about running away.

“I get the urge for goin’/but I never seem to go” I heard it first from Tom Rush, but Joni Mitchell wrote it. Came from a prairie town where icy winds brought deep snow until late spring. The geese rose up and went south in “chevron flight” because they had the “wings to go.”  Trapped inside, the town hunkered down. Rode it out. Some days, here on the winter flight path in the Northwest where I live, the chevron flights pass overhead, honkin’ and “a racin’ on before the snow”… and I get an urge for going, but at very long last, I have no need to go.  

 Photo Credit

©  Michael Lebowitz, Long Run Photography

Those of you with attention to detail may have noticed that Tarmac Meditations #66 and #67 were printed out of order.  Life as A Human wishes to apologize to both Michael Lebowitz and his fans for this error.  Michael’s editor promises to get a bit more sleep and add one more run to her week to keep her brain sharp in order to avoid future errors. 

Michael Lebowitz ponders the early morning rain, hearing what matters and listening to the sound of thunder.

12/27
“Woke last night to the sound of thunder…” was on the iPod this morning. The rain and fog lay heavy in the valley and my running came slow. Despite the wrong turns and the mis-steps on the way to here, I get to run before daylight in the early morning rain. And yeah, I am still – believe it or not – workin’ on my night moves, only now they have something more to do with love and a sense of kindness. Go figure.

12/30
Went to get a hearing test this morning…apparently I have suffered no appreciable loss of hearing since the days when my mother and then my ex wife used to tell me that they were speaking clearly enough for anyone who was actually listening to hear what was being said. And that my friends was the good news and the bad news. When the tech told me I was very visual, I told her, Yeah, I hear ya.

Photo Credit

“Drive under Rain and Fog.”  All rights reserved by Yann Charles

Before his holiday run, Michael Lebowitz reflects on a time when Christmas represented simplicity and possibiltiy.

Christmas Eve 2010 

Down the valley the mill makes monsters, rising smoke forms alliances with passing clouds. It all seems so simple really. Sky above, earth below and  night time comin’ on. Put a log on the fire and hot tea in a cup. Read a good book and be at one with the stillness of it. Christmas is not really my holiday, but the world seems easier for the moment and the inner voices are quiet. A passing breeze brings raindrops.

December 25, 2010
I had my normal night’s sleep. Woke to find Santa doing my dishes at 3:00 AM, hour of the wolf. Coffee and toast by 3:20, followed by words and drifting.  Bing Crosby is singing of a White Christmas. I’m thinking about my father. The song was from his time. It all seemed so simple then, so full of possibilities. Time to lace up, to run by the river. It wasn’t like this very often for me but it was this way once. Merry Christmas then. Merry Christmas now. Peace out.

Photo Credit:

Lights.  Flickr Creative Commons.   © All rights reserved by Brian Cavanaugh

A runner discovers beauty in running hard, getting dirty and seeing the sunset

December 20, 2010

Shot the “Frozen Trail RunFest” with Phil Johnson and Jay Schwartz yesterday. Nine-plus hours on my feet was hard on me but nowhere near the effort of the runners, Erik, Bob, Dan, Kristi, Jerry, Pam, and the aid-station folks, Laura and her “dirty mothers”.

Today came the Winter Solstice 5K…new course record, great prizes…Eclectic Edge Racing rules! Dan Olmstead on Mt. Pisgah in the Frozen Trail Run Fest 50K…thanks to Phil Johnson, shooting for the LongRun Picture Company, we can have an image in the “real” to support the imagination of every trail runner I know who in their heads sees themselves just like this; muddied, going hard uphill, sun going down, time to get it done, writing their own story with every footstep. Beautiful.

Photo Credit:

Flickr Creative Commons. Some rights reserved by david.ian.roberts