This poster features pastel artwork and an article by Christopher Cudworth originally published in the FINISH LINE section of Runner’s World magazine. Now available at Fine Art America.

This newly designed poster features pastel artwork and an article by Christopher Cudworth originally published in Runner’s World Magazine. Click to view enlarged image.

TEXT OF ARTICLE

We all begin by assuming something about ourselves. Our legs are too thin, or too fat. Too slow for basketball. Sink when you swim. And then, the process begins  •  A rut in the grass. That was our training loop in high school. Every scrawny tree was a checkpoint in the perimeter around the campus, carved out of cornfields. The distance was .85 miles around. Coach promised steaks to the top seven guys if we all broke the 4-minute barrier in practice. We were all 14, 15 years old. It didn’t matter that it wasn’t a full mile. We broke the 4-minute barrier. Some guys get to win races. I consider myself fortunate to have been one of them. Cross-country victories always seemed to come in the rain. Leaving competitors behind in the slp and puddles felt extra good. Losing in the same was twice as bad  •  The steeplechase was my event in college. It wasn’t as prestigious as the “flat” races: the 1500, 5000 and 10,000. Perhaps I wasn’t fast enough. But I liked jumping that water. Saw a guy go all the way under once. How silent it must have been those few moments, below the surface  •  Hundred mile weeks were the most I ever managed. Being in love helped me do it. Nothing could hurt me, not for miles at a time or week after week. Running was effortless, a delicious separation from her, knowing I was going back. That’s how runners are. They need love. If they don’t get it, they run more  •  I run for different reasons now. Races strain meaning from the effort, like a sieve. Kenny Moore, the marathoner and writer said: “Running is hard, clean, severe,” and that is true. But my favorite quote is from the book Ambiguous Adventure, by Cheik Hamidou Kane: “The purity of the moment is made from the absence of time.”  •   That’s  how it is when you’re focused and running. It erases time for the moment. Then the forces that shape a runner become repetition, luck, imagination, love, and finally balance. Makes one wonder what’s ahead.

This article and illustrations originally appeared in the FINISH LINE section of Runner’s World Magazine, September, 1995. Article and illustrations © Christopher Cudworth 2013