Freedom In the End

This is a poem I wrote after completing a marathon.

“Freedom in the End”

 

Breath burning in my chest

Pain radiates from head to toe

Begging for a chance to rest

Pushing through to reach a personal best

 

Miles of life pass me by

My mind hangs on the many to go

Head swimming from an oxygen high

Tendons and chemicals pushing to fly

 

Freedom found in the hurt to come

Cooling my brow as the wind begins to blow

Reaching the end and my heart starts to drum

Pain going away as my feet become numb

 

My heat is not coming from the beating sun

I feel as though time will slow

At last this horrible agony is done

Crossing over I freely run

Reviews

[alanwgraham]

Well done Shep - both on the marathon and the poem. As a runner for the last nearly 40 years I appreciate your feeling of achievement. Running a marathon for the first time is a great adventure and takes a great deal of training and forethought. I enjoyed planning the training but the outcome is uncertain because most don't run the full distance before. I ended up doing four in the early eighties and then turned to mountain running which has formed a great part of my life. What are your plans now?
Thanks for sharing.
Alan

[PenManShep]

Thanks Alan! I ran 17 miles for my longest training day. My plan was simply to finish, but it changed my life to have done it. I hope to get into better shape before I attempt another one. I should have trained harder for about a year. I suffered an injury in the middle of my training and I feel I could have avoided it by being more incremental with piling on the mileage. I hike the Big Horns every year so mountain running might be a good fit for me.