How to Grow a Runner

  For many years, I have struggled to communicate why music and running are so similar to me. I have understanding for any person who looks at a symphony full of tuxedo wearing trained prodigies and fails to see why I compare them to dirt covered runners. But this past week presented me with the perfect parallel to communicate why these two VERY different groups are actually quite similar. The first time I played the trombone excerpt from Mahlers’ 5 th , I cried. I played it in the safety of the basement of my mother’s house while preparing for an audition when I was 16. When I played it again at a college interview, though I did not cry, the same emotion bubbled in my chest. When I was 21 years old, I had a cancer scare that challenged my whole world view. I was in college, earning a degree in music performance and two weeks after my initial diagnosis, I played the Barnes Third symphony for Wind Band, written to honor his son who died of cancer. I did not have a car at the time an