On September 26th, 1982, I wrote the following entry in my green Bill Rodgers runner's log. "A runners paradise. I will be coming here from now on." The paradise I was referring to was Eisenhower Park. It was conveniently located between work, which I did during the day, and school, which I attended at night.

When I started running there, I had only been running for about six months, but running was already a defining part of who I was becoming as a human being. Eisenhower Park was the hub of running activity on Long Island. From parking area 2, there were five clearly marked tours of the park, each with its own distinctly colored arrows painted on the ground and pointing the way to routes of one to five miles. All you had to do was follow the arrows with the color of the route you wanted to run.

It was only a few weeks later that I lost the park to winter's darkness. Once daylight savings time ended, the park was too dark to run in, so I had to find alternative options for running in lighted areas of other places to get me through winter's cold clutches. From the end of October on, I counted the days until spring's arrival, and with it, the arrival of evening daylight, so I could return to the park.

My enthusiasm for running, and my fondness towards the park grew through most of the next year, but in September 1983, I moved to North Carolina, and Eisenhower Park became paradise lost. It was like losing a friend. Of course, I quickly invented places to run near my new home which became my new comrades, but, as Lloyd Benson would have said, they were no Eisenhower.

For most of the next two decades, running continued to be a main fiber of who was. Though my life turned in more directions than a Six Flags roller-coaster, running remained the one constant that never seemed to change, except that my times slowed over the years. Though life around me was changing at an alarming rate, running remained the same simple act of lacing up a pair of shoes, dressing appropriately for the conditions outside, and then going out the door and running.

About three years ago, I hit a major roadblock in my life, which spilled over to my running, and as a result, running ceased to exist. This happened for a variety of reasons, including physical, psychological, emotional, and some reasons which I am sure I still don't know. The simple fact was that the longer I went without running, the less desire I had to start it back up again. I stopped running in April of 2005, only six months after I had set a lifetime marathon PR at the age of 49, and with the exception of a few meager efforts to return to the fold, I became a non-runner. I rationalized why I stopped in every way possible, and blamed it on every external thing I could think of. The fact is that the only reason I stopped running was an internal one. I didn't have it within me to take the first steps back.

In June of this year, I started a long term assignment in New York. As luck would have it, the hotel I have been staying at is right across the street from the paradise I had first discovered over 25 years earlier, when I was exactly half my current age. But as a non-runner, Eisenhower Park, my paradise lost, only served to mock me. Through the summer, I drove past the park every day on the way to work, but never drove through it, and never even considered running it. Instead, I almost daily cursed my body for failing me, when my body was not to blame. In reality, I was failing my body, allowing it to start acting and feeling its age.

But in the later stages of the summer, life drastically changed again, in several ways. Some I have shared, and some I have not, but the cumulative effect was that on a mild late September New York day, I found myself once again at Eisenhower Park, searching for parking area 2, and the marked trails which were once my main paths to sanity.

When I finally found it, the memories were vague at best. Some things had changed. The five different colored allows of a quarter century ago had been reduced to two, a white one and a red one, marking the 1-mile and 3-mile loops. The others three arrows had been painted over in black, and invalidated, due to the fact that some of those other routes took runners outside the park, creating liability issues.

My return to the park after 25 years created a swarm of emotions. As I struggled through my first 3-mile return, I found a few things to be true. First, I didn't remember the route very well, and a few times, I "lost the scent" of the trail, and had to retrace steps to find the next red arrow and get back on track. Another feeling I had was that I felt old, and slow, and most every step of the run was unpleasant.

But at the same time, I was amazed that looking back 25 years felt like a blink of an eye. I was running the exact same trail I used to run before I was married the first time, before I was a father, before I became established in my career. I was running this very trail before anything that came after. Now I am well established and looking towards retirement sooner rather than later, I am single once again, and I am a grandfather of a beautiful 11-week old boy.

In the midst of all this change, the trail I was running was virtually unchanged with one major exception. About a mile into the run, as the route took me by the lake, there was a new memorial overlooking the water, a commemoration of 9/11. It was a poignant reminder that even remaining on a constant path, there is no total stability in this world we live in.

I got through that first run with very mixed feelings. I cursed my watch, which I really shouldn't have worn. It only served as a reminder that I am not the same runner I was in 1982. At the same time though, I felt relieved that I was able to navigate three miles, and wondered if this was a one shot deal, or if I would return again and again to work my way back to running, and the life I knew for so many years. I know the advances would have to be taken one baby step at a time. Learning to run again is akin to an infant learning to walk. It's a long and slow process.

This past month or so has answered many burning questions in the affirmative. I've been going back to Eisenhower Park almost every day during the week, and when I go to see my daughter and grandson back in Atlanta on weekends, I run down by the Chattahoochee River, another running paradise. The running has gotten better. This past weekend, I completed my first 8-mile run in years, and I am now committed to running two marathons next year, Rock and Roll San Diego in June, and Twin Cities, my marathon PR course, in October.

I have gotten stronger in both mind and body, the memories have become much clearer, and I once again go to bed at night knowing that the next morning is going to start with a run. I have returned to paradise. It is nice to be back.

Now, if you will excuse me, I have a date at Eisenhower Park I must keep.