Running for Your Life: Leaf Envy

These weeks of non-running have coincided with the falling of the leaves in Prospect Park.

One strong storm or blustery day and the thousands of beautiful trees in our Brooklyn forest will be more bare that leaf-filled.

For a variety of reasons – and not just injury – it’s been years since I’ve caught my annual leaf on the run. If I were to have goal, upon returning to running after my nasty knee injury, it is that next November I will have my leaf.

To explain what I mean when I say this, here’s a sample of a previous blog post about my leaf practice:

“When the leaves fall I don’t vary my route, don’t steer myself under trees to increase my chances of catching leaves as they fall, instead, I just run as I always do, don’t press any harder or, God forbid, slow down or stop, and the leaves that come to me – not trap against my body or get caught up in my clothes but rather that I snatch from mid-air with my bare hand – are mine. The ones that I’ve put up on the wall-of-progress I’ve caught only in this way. And not just leaves, but maple keys and acorns, too. Those that I trap against my body I drop to the ground. The rule is it has to be a leaf or a seed that has come falling from a tree. I then hold the leaf only in the hand it was caught in, don’t let it touch any other part of my body, and continue on, completing my route before I return home. I only tack up those leaves that have not touched anything but my hand and the wall. That have only been in air and held in my open hand.”

In 2016, I will be in Leaf Envy no more, I trust.

Next: Running for Your Life: If the Greats Were With Us Thursday