My hero

This is my friend Sharon. She just got back from riding 540 miles from San Francisco to L.A. during the week-long AIDS Ride. She is often my inspiration while I run. I tell myself, "If Sharon can pedal up and down hills for 10 hours one day and then get up early the next morning, pack up her tent and camping gear, and ride for another 10 hours and then do it again day after day for a week, I can put on my shoes and run a few miles."

Like me, Sharon was not a jock when she started. And like me, she is not a youngster. She was just a person who enjoyed riding around on her bike. (As I was a person who enjoyed taking long walks.) Then, she decided to commit to this huge goal, not only riding 540 miles, but also raising thousands of dollars for AIDS organizations. She put her mind to it and trained and trained and finally, she did it. There were pain and some tears, she told us at her Welcome Back party Tuesday night, but somehow she just kept going.

You can read about Sharon and the ride in her official AIDS/Lifecycle blog. You can also still make a contribution in her name.

One thing Sharon and I talked about Tuesday night was the mystery of how we keep going when our minds are fighting us and just wanting to stop. I found this passage in a book I'm reading, The Runner's High:Illumination and Ecstasy in Motion, in which Sara Rufner describes this phenomenon perfectly:

"I want to stop, oh, I want to stop like nothing else, but the steady shush, shush, shush of my feet on the pavement and the cadence of my breath in out, in out, in out are like a song that never ends. Inertia, I think. I am the ball in motion that stays in motion. I keep going. I keep going. I keep going."