I celebrate myself; And what I assume you shall assume; For every atom belonging to me, as good belongs to you.
…
The smoke of my own breath; Echoes, ripples, buzz’d whispers, love-root, silk-thread, crotch and vine; My respiration and inspiration, the beating of my heart, the passing of blood and air through my lungs; The sniff of green leaves and dry leaves, and of the shore, and dark-color’d sea-rocks, and of hay in the barn; The sound of the belch’d words of my voice, words loos’d to the eddies of the wind; A few light kisses, a few embraces, a reaching around of arms; The play of shine and shade on the trees as the supple boughs wag; The delight alone, or in the rush of the streets, or along the fields and hill-sides; The feeling of health, the full-noon trill, the song of me rising from bed and meeting the sun.
-Walt Whitman. Leaves of Grass. 1900.


I've decided that a 45th birthday deserves a little extra celebration. I'm going to run the 50K (31 miles) by myself. On my birthday. Alone.