darrell loudermilk

“As I prepare for my marathon qualifier, I continue to run on Wednesdays with the regular group. We continue to navigate a path near Shorter’s house. His name still comes up frequently, as it has since I arrived in town. We’ll be running along the foothills or perhaps finishing up a workout back atop Mapleton Hill. Someone will say they saw Shorter at the liquor store and he was as warm and friendly as can be. Someone else will say he saw Shorter somewhere else, perhaps at McGuckin Hardware, and Frank couldn’t have been more of a jerk. Before I met with him, I’d come to see him the way many in Boulder see him: mysterious and difficult, a seemingly selfish man on a mockable crusade to win a gold medal to match the gold medal he already has. I’d grown certain that he was a miserable soul locked away in his house, the lonely long-distance runner stewing in demons of his own design.”
― Robert Andrew Powell, Running Away

“Describing Pepe the cartoon frog as “associated with white supremacy” is akin to describing the Stars and Stripes as “associated with flag burning.” It is technically correct, factually true—and utterly clueless.”
― Michael Malice, The New Right: A Journey to the Fringe of American Politics

“I should not talk so much about myself if there were anybody else whom I knew as well.”
― Henry David Thoreau, Walden: Or, Life in the Woods

“We ran on paths that would narrow to trails and on trails that would narrow to almost nothing. We were running where deer bounded, where coyotes rambled. We ran through calf-deep snow and streams swollen with spring melt so cold that after a while I couldn’t feel my feet. Somewhere between my agonized, gasping high school forays to Adolph Store and now, running had turned into something other than training. It had turned into a kind of meditation, a place where I could let my mind—usually occupied with school, thoughts of the future, or concerns about my mom—float free. My body was doing by itself what I had always struggled to make it do. I wasn’t stuck on my dead-end street. No bully was spitting in my face. I felt as if I was flying.”
― Scott Jurek, Eat and Run: My Unlikely Journey to Ultramarathon Greatness