Going the Distance: "Living a Running Life - Not a Bad Way to Be!"

This morning Facebook showed me my July memories:



I shared them in my feed saying, "Hmmm - I wonder how we spent a good part of July?! Thanks for the memories Facebook. #teammcmanus #ruhbermuda #runhappy #paralyticpolio #trauma #inspiration #transformation #runningismymedicine"

My runner friend aka #texajerseygirl Nicole posted, "Hahahahaha living that running life 😘 not a bad way to be."

Not a bad way to be at all!

Running is my medicine, my therapy, and a way of life. As Joan Benoit Samuelson poignantly said, "As every runner knows, running is about more than just putting one foot in front of the other; it is about our lifestyle and who we are."

If you're not a runner, it's hard to understand this obsession with running. I became a runner a the age of 53. I had been diagnosed with Post-Polio Syndrome, a progressive neuromuscular disease by Western Medicine standards; a result of paralytic polio I contracted at the age of 5 and unhealed trauma in my body. I knew that I was at a crossroads in my life. Would I take the diagnosis sitting down and resign myself to a life in a wheelchair, surrendering my life to a medical diagnosis or would I somehow find a way out of the dark night of the mind, body and soul I was experiencing?

When I got still and asked for Divine Guidance, the poem "Running the Race" flowed out of me. At the time in February of 2007, I was using a wheelchair at times for mobility, wearing a toe up leg brace, using a cane and facing a grim future having been told I needed to quit my award winning career as a VA social worker and that I should prepare to spend the rest of my life in a wheelchair.

The power of my mind took over and began to create a new future through the power of my pen, my divining rod for healing and poetry poured out of me imagining myself as healthy, whole and healed running unencumbered and free.

Ten plus years later running and health and fitness are a way of life for me. Living a running life - not a bad way to be and the only way of life I know now.

Tomorrow 7 sweet miles is on tap once again on the road to Bermuda Marathon Weekend. Team McManus will be depositing more miles in the Bank of Bermuda and creating more memories because we live a running life!

Go the distance with strength and courage!
~Mary

Be sure to visit my website by following this link.

My books are available on Amazon.

Feel the Heal: An Anthology of Poems to Heal Your Life


Coming Home: A Memoir of Healing Hope and Possibility that chronicles the first 7 years of my healing journey:


And my latest and greatest book - Going the Distance: The Power of Endurance (With a Foreword by Jacqueline Hansen):