Running with Jason

In his classic book, The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner, Alan Sillitoe wrote, “the long-distance run of an early morning makes me think that every run like this is a life- a little life, I know- but a life as full of misery and happiness and things happening as you can ever get really around yourself.” When I first read Sillitoe’s book, the solitary, individual journey his protagonist, Smith, takes as a young man – using running as a vehicle of rebellion – spoke to my typically angst-filled youth. Through the fictional Smith, and later living running heroes like Steve Prefontaine and Roger Bannister, I learned to believe that the purist form of distance running occurred alone and simply. A man and the miles became my definition of running, which lasted long into adulthood.