I ran my final six miles this morning along the Rio Grande River Trail before we leave for our next assignment. I ran a stretch of the trail that is always meaningful because of the old tree in the distance. The tree stands in the middle of an open field, but what once was alive and strong, this tree stands void of leaves and life.
Throughout the last two years, I have run many miles on the river trail. I have run at different times of day and in all the seasons of the year. The one constant symbol along the trail had been that tree. When I first began training for my first half marathon in El Paso—the Flying House Half Marathon, the tree was my turn around point for my ten miler training runs. Because of my schedule, many of those runs were done later at night in the fall. The tree looked spooky as the sun began to drop. When I trained for the El Paso Marathon, I changed my running direction on the trail and the tree became the motivation to finish the runs as I traveled ten, fifteen, and eighteen milers. The tree sits about a half a mile from the big rock that starts the trail. Since that experience, the tree has been a constant motivator to me as I completed one run after another. Even today, that tree was a motivator to finish strong as the end was approaching fast.
This tree has done its job. It has given me life when it seemed that the tree lacked any life at all. It was the motivation to keep me going and I hope it stands to gives many other runners the push they need.