I was looking for a list of patron saints (although I am not Catholic) to see whether there was one who was associated with trail work, hiking, etc. Came up completely empty, other than the patron saint of Ecology is--of course--St. Francis of Assisi.
Anyway, the site I was searching is called MyCatholicSource and just to scan through the alphabetical listing of patronages is interesting. Just within the "A" section we see that there are patron saints for:
Actors (St. Genesius)
Accountants (St. Matthew)
Ammunition Workers (St. Barbara)
Amputees (St. Anthony the Great)
Archaeologists (St. Jerome)
Auto Industry (St. Catherine of Alexandria)
Scrolling down, there are 3 patrons saints for Comedians (St. Genesius, Laurence, and Vitus), and the patron saint of Dog Bites is St. Ubald.
Not trying to poke fun here, but you just gotta smile at some of these!
The link to Ultrarunning? On the Ultrarunning side of life the best fit would be the patron saint of Athletes, St. Sebastian.
However, note that St. Sebastian also doubles as the patron saint of Bookbinders, Unruly Children, Contagious Diseases, Enemies of Religion (against), Funeral Directors, Iron Workers, Lead Workers, Neighborhood Watch, Pestilence (against), Plague, Police, Potters, Soldiers, Surgeons, and Swans...so go figure.
Before Christianity, people attributed events in the natural world to a host of separate gods and spirits. Spirits of the rocks, trees, spirits of the sea, of the fields. We know that in order to convert people to the new religion, the church absorbed a lot of existing festivals and beliefs. How much difference is there between asking the spirit of the bulls to make your prize beast fertile, and praying to St Mark for the same thing? Same gods, different names.
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