A runner's path is often solitary, barren, without a final destination. Yet, runners embark on that path over and over and over again. Their Baptist-like devotion, strong, undaunted, is profound.

They don't run to something, they say. They run to be something, to reach a plane of higher emotion or camaraderie. Some seek their inner zen, a release for an unseen element of their soul.

Like vases, runners come in all shapes, in various sizes. A template does not exist. For every Nike, the Greek goddess of Victory, Roger Bannister and Acanthus of Sparta, there is the pot-bellied, middle-aged office worker; the first-time mother; the 70-year-old freak of nature; and the 45-year-old whose inspiration comes from the inescapable progress of Father Time. Come one, come all, they say.

The streets of Anniston are where they will come next Saturday, in rain or August heat. Honk if you see them. The Woodstock 5K, once one of Anniston's little secrets, has grown up, shedding its awkward teenage years. It's now a national championship race, a big deal in a little town.

No longer is it something Annistonians can keep to themselves.

Instead, it has to be shared, a communal event for hundreds of people — a few pros, countless wanna-bes — many of whom will search for their inner zen along the hilly, twisting streets of east Anniston.

For a day, Anniston will be ground central for a cadre of people hard to describe and even harder to discourage. Those who don't run — most of the population, you know — may have a hard time understanding what they see, and why these crazy, seemingly inspired people run for no apparent reason other than they can.

* * * "I am able to capture that youthful, kid-like feeling from childhood. That's the feeling I get whenever I go out and run. It's that little Genie in the bottle that you catch when you run like a kid." * * *

Running must be omnipotent. War can't even stop it.

At least that's the impression you get from Dexter Filkins, the New York Times foreign correspondent who has covered the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2001. He's a Pulitzer Prize finalist, a journalist of note.

In 2008, he published The Forever War, which detailed not only those bloody wars, but the wars through his eyes — on the ground, embedded with U.S. soldiers, alongside Afghans and Iraqis whose lives were being irreparably altered by bombs, guns and religious fanaticism.

The themes of Filkins' book are dark, humbling, humane. As Americans have long known, these wars are real, with body counts and casualty lists and flag-draped coffins. As such, Filkins' work is not merely a book on war. It's a book about the people in war. Humanity is a central element.

So, too, is running.

Woven throughout are occasional references to Filkins' daily runs. Yes, in war zones, with danger nearby, the sounds of AK-47s and mortars and bombs in the distance. It's not the normal routine for someone seeking physical respite from another day's grind.

The Times correspondent told of his afternoon runs in the Kabul sports stadium, where he had "sat at midfield nearly four years before and watched the Talibs put a man to death."

Late in his time in Iraq, he lamented a change in the daily routine that allowed him to retain a portion of his sanity. No longer was he able to run safely — by Iraqi standards — in a guarded part of Baghdad, alongside the Tigris River, protected by concrete walls and friendly police. Instead, he had to settle for sweating between two Iraqi checkpoints, fearing the city's increased violence, its growing number of wild dogs and the unfortunate reality that an Iraqi guard friendly to Americans would mistake him for an insurgent.

If he ran between the two checkpoints six or seven times, he said, he'd get in a five-mile run.

"Running at night: it was madness," Filkins wrote. "I was courting death, or at least a kidnapping … (But) I had been in Iraq too long. Going on four years. I'd lived through everything, shootings and bomb blasts and death, and I'd never gotten so much as a scratch. I guess I was numb. I guess I felt invincible."

So he ran. Because he wanted to. Because he needed to.

* * * "It's a passion; it's about feeling comfortable within yourself. When you run, you put yourself on the line. It's your strengths, your weaknesses. It's all you … (Running) defines who I am, as people who know me will say." * * *

Of course, Iraqis didn't know what to make of the crazy American journalist or his brazenness. In Muslim nations, men don't bare their legs; it's offensive, improper. Filkins, not a Muslim, followed any runner's fashion sense: shoes, T-shirt and a pair of shorts — stopping well above the knee.

A group of Iraqi soldiers whom Filkins befriended stopped him one day as he survived his daily run in the 130-degree Baghdad climate. They gave him a uniform from Iraq's national soccer team — a jersey bearing the nation's colors of white and green, and a pair of shorts that came well below his knee.

Filkins accepted them, gratefully, but kept running in his offensive, improper shorts.

More often than not when Filkins would pass by the checkpoint, one of the Iraqis would stop him, shake his hand, and say, "Laish? Laish, habibi?"

Why? Why, my friend?

Because runners have to run.

* * * "There's just something about being out there around thousands of people who have something in common. The camaraderie of runners … They're the friendliest people in the world. It doesn't matter where you go — Nashville, Birmingham, California — they're the friendliest people to be around." * * *

Runners seem to be the everyman of sports, the antithesis of the bulked-up, uniformed jock. Apparently, a runner can be anyone whose spirit feels the urge to move. The neighbor, the friend, the co-worker, the person who worships in the pew seat next to yours.

Even the famous seek what runners may call the beautiful agony:

Arthur Blank, Home Depot's co-founder and owner of the NFL's Atlanta Falcons.

Hollywood actors Will Farrell, Katie Holmes, Anthony Edwards and Lisa Ling — and that's only a few.

Politicians George W. Bush — yes, W. ran a marathon more than a decade ago — Michael Dukakis, Bill Frist, John Edwards, Al Gore and Mike Huckabee.

Comedian Dana Carvey.

Television journalist Ted Koppel.

And Oprah Winfrey, who needs no description.

None are entered in the Woodstock 5K.

Nevertheless, Winfrey, as she mentions in The Quotable Runner, has tried to capture the spirit of why such a simplistic, childlike activity often becomes equal parts passion and obsession for so many people.

Athletic ability doesn't seem a necessity. Skill's irrelevant. A person's want-to — gumption, drive, dedication to whatever makes their feet urge to move — is the key.

"Running is the greatest metaphor for life," Winfrey said, "because you get out of it what you put into it."

Perhaps that's why people have long sought running's deeper meaning, as if it were a religion or creed. It has to have an essence, a traceable magnetic effect.

What is it, critics have long asked, that drives someone to rise at first light, lace up a pair of Asics and chase the sunrise one mile at a time, morning after morning? What is so powerful that it can convince someone that running five miles — or 26 miles, as it may be — is an enjoyable way to spend an afternoon?

Is it lunacy? Or is it some latent need to discover something unknown, and perhaps unknowable, about one's self?

"I have learned that there is no failure in running, or in life, as long as you keep moving," Amby Burfoot, winner of the 1968 Boston Marathon, wrote in The Runner's Guide to the Meaning of Life. "It's not about speed or gold medals. It's about refusing to be stopped. You might find that one particular direction proves difficult, but there are many directions on a compass. Infinite, in fact. As long as you keep searching, you'll find your winning way."

* * * Why do you run?

"Because I can. That's my answer. And because I know one day I won't be able to any more."