I’ve had a life long love affair. It started as a child, sitting on the steps of my hometown’s main street. A 3’x5′ map under glass sparking my wanderlust. My little burg divided down main by Piatt and Douglas Counties. A precocious reader I knew there was a whole wide world outside of Atwood and Illinois. And an awareness that life held no promises.
Two things especially resonate from my youth. Strange as it may sound I knew that Time and Distance would be constants in my life. How much distance I could cover with the time I am given. This was long before I took my first running step. It was more of an insatiable desire for travel, to see wonders of the world contained in my books.
I went out for track as a high school freshman and sophomore. The only sport that I could reconcile my small stature into a proper kit (excepting the sweats, always two sizes too large.) Our training conducted on the grass oval surrounding our football field. The school now gone, memories remain. I would go like hell to the front before predictably and consistently fading to last. A paradigm that would return during the earliest stages of my competitive running career. Each race it would take just a little longer to catch me, until at last I tasted the sweet sustenance of victory.
Breaking that first tape, prompting the last 40 years (so far). And as the fates smiled down, renewing desire for other countries, other cultures. Taking me to far flung places like Japan and Rio and more.
Hi, my name is Will. And I Love To Run.
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