There I was starting mile 7 of my evening run, lumbering along at my “run-all-day” pace. I was trying to concentrate on whether I wanted to write a blog about my new Newtons or the trail I ran last Saturday to keep from thinking about the growing arthritis pain in my left leg. (Normally the pain doesn’t start until after mile 11, if then.) It was then that I had one of those experiences that confirm that life is full of clues and cues to help us get more out of it.
I was feeling pretty good about my “run-all-day” pace. (Also sometimes called my “Chi-neutral” or “go-as-slow-as-possible-while-still-technically-running” pace.) Since I started running in my Newtons I have actually lowered that pace to around 10:30. I know, there are a tremendous number of every day runners out there who warm up faster than that, but I must admit to being happy with it. In fact, I would have to say that I was, at that moment, feeling (a bit embarrassed to admit) rather invincible despite the arthritis pain. It was then that a man who was at least my age passed me like I was standing still.
I always say that I’m not very competitive, but I know that’s not totally true. Sure, I cheer for everyone and when I watch a game I want both teams or both players to win. At the same time I know that I speed up during the last 5km of a half and I pick out runners ahead of me whom I want to catch. I say that first and foremost I want to enjoy a race, and I honestly do enjoy them. At Disney I take time to enjoy high-fiving Mickey Mouse and at Nashville I ran back two blocks for a free beer, but at the same time I’m glancing at my Garmin because I also want to someday do a sub-2 and today might be it.
That said, when the man passed me without as much as saying “hi”, I instinctually leaned forward a little and put it in Danny Dwyer’s Chi First Gear. My Garmin dropped to 9:00. The man kept pulling away seemingly effortlessly. I didn’t want to admit to myself that I was chasing him, but I found myself leaning a bit more – Chi Second Gear – and my Garmin dropped again to 7:38. I was very slowly closing the gap and I knew that I had less than half a mile before we hit a major intersection. Then I realized I wasn’t having fun. I had stopped looking around at the houses and people working in their yards. I had stopped waving at people and commenting on their flowers and thinking about how great a time I was having.
I slowed down. No. Momentarily I stopped. I looked at the disappearing figure and realized that wasn’t why I was running. Yes, this man had unknowingly bruised my ego. I was psychologically at the head of the pack and that man blew me away. I couldn’t help but to think about a section of Amby Burfoot’s book The Runner’s Guide to the Meaning of Life (2007. Skyhorse Publishing. New York). Mr. Burfoot told about an interview with the famous George Sheehan, a tremendously competitive runner, just before he died of cancer. In that interview Amby asked “What’s the single most important thing running has taught you about life?” Sheehan explained that he was a very competitive racer and that he always ran to beat others. But cancer changed that. He concluded with the statement “The most important thing I learned is that there is only one runner in this race, and that is me.”
It took the great George Sheehan a lifetime, cut short by cancer, to learn what every runner actually knows if they take the time to stop and think. I have run in at least seven races large enough to have nationally or internationally elite runners going for the cash on the front row. I can tell you, from memory, my time, pace, place in division and over-all place for each of those races, but I can’t tell you who physically crossed the finish line first. Yes I would like to be the first one across the finish line, but I know that just isn’t going to happen. I’d really like to be first in my division across the line. That has happened, and it feels great. But I have to admit that at the finish line I never suspected that I was first in my division and that wasn’t why I was running. I felt alive, invigorated and satisfied even before I learned that I had placed.
Amby went on to write,
“We may enter races with 75,000 other runners in them, we may chart our times, we may line up our trophies on the mantelpiece, we may hope to see our names in the newspaper, but these are ultimately superficial. No one wins every race or forever. Everyone slows down. Everyone becomes reduced by the ravages of time, the side effects of a life fully lived.
Winning is not about headlines and hardware. It’s only about attitude. A winner is a person who goes out today and every day and attempts to be the best runner and best person he can be. Winning has nothing to do with racing. Most days don’t have races anyway. Winning is about struggle and effort and optimism, and never, every, giving up.”
When I slowed down and stopped I wasn’t giving up. I was merely going back to what really matters and what really makes us all winners. I was going back to reality and life. I was going back to the joy of the effort that gives us such satisfaction. I was going back to that which makes us all winners. And the man disappearing ahead of me . . . well, I hope he feels like a winner too.
We all practice this in our own ways. My late wife, who struggled against heart disease and faced insurmountable odds every day for over twenty years was a winner. Getting out of bed was a challenge. Walking up a short flight of stairs was exhausting and she would have to stop twice in a flight of 11 steps. But she got out of bed each day. She climbed those steps. The only reason that she used a wheelchair at a park or zoo was because she didn’t want to make others wait. She walked into the hospital ER the day she died. She would not be kept down. Run for the joy, the fun and the exhilaration, the sense of being alive and making a difference that makes you a winner, for in the end result there’s only one runner in the race, and that’s you.
Good running!!
Russ
No comments:
Post a Comment