Prayer thrives in solitude and quietness, which can be hard to acquire. If one would be inclined neither to lead, nor follow, but be alone in solitude and quiet, one can do as Jesus did– go out into the darkness.
Before sunrise, in the city, in the neighborhoods, one can go out and not see anyone for hours. Except for cars and lights in houses, few signs of active life will distract the person who has the streets to himself.
At 5am of a November morning, one can visit Seattle’s Green Lake and sometimes not see a single other person, especially in windy, rainy weather. In calm, mild weather, one might happen across a score of early walkers, with flashlights and headlamps, walking dogs, drinking coffee with a friend.
Running (one or more laps around) the 3.2 miles that is the outer trail around Green Lake is excellent training for the 26.2 mile distance of a marathon. It’s a beautiful lake, with plentiful ducks and herons, canoe teams doing their wee hours’ training, the cozy lights of homes upon the low hills of Wallingford and Phinney Ridge, the clouds and stars overhead, the innumerable varieties of people who have little by way of appearance in common except that we walk, bike, and run around Green Lake for any and every reason.
The morning runner who begins the day with prayers finds these intense activities perfectly compatible. In solitude, one can deploy all his prayer formulas: memorized, standard prayers, personal prayers, petitions for family, friends, loved ones, strangers in desperate and ongoing need, memorized Scriptures, thanksgivings for every day of the week and every month of the year, thanksgivings for decades of Rosary intentions, meditation on the day’s Scripture readings: the long, intricate chain that constitutes one’s daily prayers after decades of fine-tuning and ongoing reforms. The hard work of running in the cold, wind, and rain focuses one solidly in the present, the early morning, on one’s opportunity to internally focus on one’s prayers as one keeps one’s external focus straight ahead on the protruding rocks, puddles, fallen branches, other people, and all the complexities of the trail.
In the day, interior prayer is often interrupted by one’s work and necessary activities, so a powerful incentive to spend hours of mornings running outdoors before dawn is the solitude thus obtained to say one’s prayers!