One of my favorite running books was written by Dr. George Sheehan. Dr. Sheehan was a runner, a writer, a doctor and a philosopher all rolled into one, in varying proportions.

On Thanksgiving Day, 1977 I quit smoking after 10 years of the habit. A few months later, when the warm spring weather was arriving, I put on some shorts and old tennis shoes and started “running,” to use the term loosely. When I first started, what I was doing out there on the road was more of a tortured shuffle, probably reminiscent of the Death March to Bataan.

In the beginning I wasn’t quite sure why I was running. Oh, sure, I knew it was good for me. And the exertion, combined with the pleasant fatigue afterward, was a welcome antidote to the residual cravings for tobacco. But as my time and distance gradually increased, I began to be aware that there were other elements of running that were resonating with me, seemingly just below the surface of consciousness.

And then one day I picked up a paperback book called Dr. Sheehan on Running. Along about this time my family and friends were beginning to recognize “this running thing” of mine as a new source of gift ideas, and I began to receive various books on running as gifts. Most of these books were preoccupied with the tangible and mechanical aspects of running: proper shoes, stretching, diet, training programs - the practical stuff.

Dr. Sheehan’s book commented on those things, to be sure. But he was much more interested in the philosophy and psychology of running - who runs, why we run, the life of the runner’s mind, the mental challenges and the spiritual benefits of running.

Basically, I became a disciple of Dr. George Sheehan. I became one with George. I read that book many times; portions of the text have stuck in my mind over the last 25 years, and they still come back to me while I’m out on the roads. More than Jim Fixx or Joe Henderson or Jeff Galloway or Hal Higdon or any of the other runner/authors, Dr. Sheehan got down where I lived as a runner and revealed what it was about running that appealed to me.

Dr. Sheehan doesn’t appeal to everyone; but for a lot of runners, there’s no one else they’d rather read.

Dr. Sheehan died in 1995 of cancer, unfortunately. His family, however, has created a web site to honor him and to continue to share his work with both us old disciples and new converts. The web site is at www.georgesheehan.com. In the “Forum” section you’ll see comments from people who sound just like me; people whose running lives were affected by Dr. Sheehan’s writings.

You see, what he made me realize was that I don’t just run; I am a runner. And I don’t just do it for the health of it, but because I found out that it is who I am. One of my favorite quotes from Dr. Sheehan is this:

“For every runner who tours the world running marathons, there are thousands who run to hear the leaves and listen to rain and look to the day when it all is suddenly as easy as a bird in flight. For them, sport is not a test but a therapy, not a trial but a reward, not a question but an answer.”