This morning when I was out walking the dogs, I found a four leaf clover.  This isn't unusual for me.  For whatever reason, I find four leaf clovers all the time.

Still, I started thinking about it after I dropped the dogs off back at the house and went on my run.  

The weather was perfect.  I wore my running shorts but needed my long sleeved technical shirt because it was a bit cool.  The birds were chirping their heads off.  I freaked out some poor bunny rabbit who would frantically run ahead of me alongside the road, crouch down and then hop off again as I got closer and flushed it out of hiding.  There were horses out to pasture.  Instead of doing my walk/run thing, I ran the whole way.  It really was a lovely run.

None of us gets through life unscathed.  I had a brain anuerysm while out on a run more than five years ago.  A good friend of mine also had an aneurysm about a year before I had mine.  We share the same doctor, and he told me recently that our aneurysms were in the exact same locations in our brains.  They fixed me up in a couple of weeks, and I had headaches for six months afterwards.  

Several surgeries later, she is still living with constant pain.  We sing in a chorus together, and I don't think she's managed to stay for an entire rehearsal all year.  She has to bail when the pain gets too bad.  I don't know if she was ever a runner, but I do know that there's no way that she could take it up now even if she wanted to.

I finished my run today feeling strong.  A good run makes me feel alive in ways that few other things can match.  I like being able to push myself to new limits.  

Bodies are fragile things.  I know exactly how lucky I am.

Today's Take it and Run Thursday asks bloggers to share their running dreams.

There's this race I've been wanting to run for years, now.  The Uwharrie Mountain Run is this really rugged race through the Uwharrie.  They hold an 8, 20, and 40 mile race simultaneously.  Someday I want to run the 8 mile race.  It's the race I was training for when my head exploded.

I had my aneurysm in January, and the race is held in February.  Needless to say, I didn't run it that year.  In fact, it seems like every time I go to run this *(^$&#! race, I'm injured.  The race is also very hard to get into.  In fact, I tried to sign up for the 2009 race but I just wasn't quick enough.  Two years ago, I actually had a registration in hand and then I had to drop out at the last minute because of a sprained ankle.

I don't really know what to do about this race.  Do I give up on it?  Do I just keep trying?  I really want to run the damn race.  It really bugs me that I haven't been able to manage it.

If there's anything I've learned over the years, it's that everyone leaves this world with things unchecked on their mental To Do list.  You're never really finished.  So maybe I should let this one go.

Still, this doesn't seem to be my style.  I flunked out of college, and a decade later I went back and finished.  Hell, I even went back many months later and finished the seven mile run my brain aneurysm had interrupted.   

What do you do with a dream deferred?