I was a little stumped for a Lone Runner Challenged for this month, so I reached out to a few of my running companions (people who ran with me before the pandemic).  I told them that my only idea was something related to the Boston Marathon, which is normally in the middle of April.  But 26 miles on one day is too much (except in a race), and 26 miles for the month was clearly too little.

 Geoff wrote back and suggested a "Mud Season" theme.  This made me go back and re-read Robert Frost's poem from where we derive this season's nickname.  

 Two Tramps in Mud Time - Robert Frost

(excerpts from)

Out of the mud two strangers came

And caught me splitting wood in the yard,

And one of them put me off my aim

By hailing cheerily “Hit them hard!”

. . .

The sun was warm but the wind was chill.

You know how it is with an April day

When the sun is out and the wind is still,

You’re one month on in the middle of May.

But if you so much as dare to speak,

A cloud comes over the sunlit arch,

A wind comes off a frozen peak,

And you’re two months back in the middle of March.

That description of April is so true!

 But then Dorcas wrote and reminded me that the Boston Marathon is held on Patriots' Day (April 19), the day of the Battle of Lexington and Concord, and maybe there was a tie in there?  Actually, the way I remember when the marathon is, is to recall the opening lines of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poem

Listen my children and you shall hear

Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,

On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-five;

Hardly a man is now alive

Who remembers that famous day and year.

from: The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere

(Note: he rode on the 18th, to raise the alarm for events on the 19th)

Patriots', mud and marathons are all great suggest, but instead I challenging you with the thread which ties them.

This months challenge is to share the poems, songs and lyrics which you carry around in your head while you run. They may be poems which inspire you, or songs which which get the blood racing, or . . .

 When I was in college, undoubtedly the favorite song for the team was Springsteen's Born to Run

 `Cause tramps like us, baby we were born to run

 but maybe your a more melancholy runner

 The long and winding road . . .

 or maybe a bit more profound

 they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, 

and not be weary;

and they shall walk, and not faint.

 I personally am greatly attached to the idea of adventure in stepping out on a road, because of the great possibilities:

The Road goes ever on and on

Down from the door where it began.

Now far ahead the Road has gone,

And I must follow, if I can,

Pursuing it with weary feet,

Until it joins some larger way

Where many paths and errands meet.

And whither then? I cannot say.

 (Bilbo/Tolkien)

So this month, send me the songs that sing in your head while you run, and let me share them with our community.