Spontaneity is the governor of joy.

Today was a highly productive day. Yet the culmination of my endeavors was not pre-ordained, scheduled, et cetra.
Moreover, it was planned to be avoided. Until I was offered something, regardless of location, time and place, I could not refuse.

I have a little place here, near my home. I feel it represents a little slice of heaven. I am fully intent on having my wedding at this location. It is the oldest working farm in the United States, and is protected by a reservation board under the Massachusetts Adubon Society.. It is my sanctuary. I come here when everything overwhelms me. When nothing remains constant. When even the most ardent and formidable rocks in my life, begin to crack under the weight of time and progress.



It is a paradise for the distance runner. It is miles upon miles of shaded, and brightly lit trails. Large tree stumps and free standing stone walls, statues reminscent of an ancient Aztec Civilization, and just nature to entertain my thoughts. I was running with a good friend of mine, who has known this location long before I ever began to run.




For his HS XC team trained in these woods. Nine years of running in a single place, and yet still finding joy amidst its familarity, is a rare event. It represents a challenge that is repeatedly faced. It represents a location which witnessed a boy grow into a man. It represents the idea of running after cycling nearly two hours on a 94 degree day, without hydration or nutrition, for the sake of testing your physical limits. It is a place the cannot lie, as the earth is the most honest mediator one can ever find. But it is also confidence.

Coming to a place like Appleton represents a challenge that makes me smile, as I stare out over the haze and the sun and the hay. I know it will be hard. I do most of my time trial runs in this place. But it will also be a memory. I run here every so many weeks, so the majority of my tenure here is codified in permeneant memory.


Even today as I come back, I recall the earlier runs here. The oxygen debt. The sliding over the ice, in the dead of an ice storrm, after a 23 miler the day before. The idea of an imminent collapse, running at maximal perceived exertion, up a dusty, dirt hill in the hottest part of August, while horses and cows turn away, as if to shield themselves from my idiocy, or the horror of what may be

I've missed this place.