I love watching people when I run. The other day at a trailside park, I saw two women, one white and one black, sitting at a little table for two, each with a bottle of Coca Cola and a bagel in front of them. They gave the appearance of two old friends meeting casually for a meal. Until I realized that they looked homeless.
This afternoon, I observed a young mom in a park, feeding her twin babies who were sitting in a double stroller. She gave one child a spoonful of something from a jar, and then when she turned to give the other child a bite, her slobbering bear of a dog licked the face of the first twin. The baby let out a childish shriek of delight, although I don’t think the mom was amused.
I ran today on a familiar stretch of roadway near where Bill and I lived when we were first married and our oldest daughter Beth was born. When we first moved there, we noticed a man running on a regular basis, holding high in the air, a transistor radio with its little antenna sticking up. We saw the man running in the heat, in the rain, in sub-zero temperatures. We were amazed. We were amused. And we began looking for him when we drove down that road. We named him “radio man.” And yes, my children, that was before there was such a thing as an ipod or a cd player or even a cassette walkman. That was twenty-eight years ago, and I wonder if he is still out there, protecting his turf. We never “met” radio man, but we knew him well.
I have had total strangers tell me the most intimate details of their marathon disasters and delights in the same way women I don’t even know tell me about the birthing of their children. I have shouted out encouragements to others just as I have received the same.
So tread carefully as you run with eyes open wide. It is part of the training too, the people that God puts on your path every day.
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