Runner's Prayer

I've been reading the book Running - The Sacred Art: Preparing to Practice by Dr. Warren A. Kay (published 2007 by Skylight Paths Publishing).

It is a practical guide on how to integrate your spirituality and running. Kay comes from a Christian perspective, but he allows for multiple entry points.

Here's an excerpt:

A Runner's Prayer

When you go for a prayerful run, you can pray as if you are talking to someone right next to you. The words are important, but you don't have to make up your own prayer extemporaneously. You can pray a prayer you have heard before, or one that you learned in your spiritual tradition. I know people who recite the Lord's Prayer on their run and others who have memorized prayers from spiritual leaders in their tradition.

Last time I checked, there is no patron saint for runners. In the Catholic Church the closest one is St. Sebastian, the patron saint of athletes. We fare quite a bit better if we are looking for a runner's prayer. The one I found most interesting was published in Day by Day: The Notre Dame Prayerbook for Students:

Run by my side -- live in my heartbeat; give strength to my steps.
As the cold confronts me, as the wind pushes me, I know you surround me.
As the sun warms me, as the rain cleanses me, I know you are touching me, challenging me, loving me.
And so I give you this run; thank you for matching my stride. Amen.

Prayer by Maureen McNellis and Karen Schulte in Day by Day: The Notre Dame Prayerbook for Students, eds. Thomas McNally and William G. Storey (Notre Dame: Ave Maria Press, 2004), p. 71.