What It Means to be a Runner
Yesterday, I ran the farthest I have ever run in a single day--I ran a 16-miler. It hurt, and today it is still hurting. But the long and the short of it is: I feel good. Running that far, and still having some gas in the tank at the end of the run, was an amazing confidence-builder for the impending marathon--and I think my co-runners felt the same.
In addition to our recent run, we have begun to square away plans for traveling and staying in Okinawa--flights, hotels, cars, beaches, women (we have to call our mothers, of course). So the whole thing is beginning to emerge out of the surreal, shadowy corners of the warehouse and will soon be frighteningly close to getting slung flat, wrong-side up, onto the rusted bed of my grandpa's old Ford pickup. Time is short!
As I sit here, I find myself bombarded with all kinds of life-metaphors to draw out from this marathon--things about starting speed, training, companionship, refueling as you run, etc. But here's a matter in which the marathon offers no parallel that I can perceive: When it comes to running a marathon, you do most of you training and indeed most of your learning beforehand (though you of course learn things during a marathon, and while most of that might well apply to a later marathon, little of it, I think, goes to the race at hand). So the marathon, beast that it is, is still just a performance, a brief moment on the stage--it belongs on the highlight reel of life, not to the desperate, interminable hours spent prepping for, editing, and producing the thing. One does not (ideally) figure out the bulk of his strategy as he runs the race--that was all mostly taken care of in the countless hours of preparation long beforehand. So my tentative conclusion is that, while there are marathon-events in life, the race of life itself has boarders stretching far beyond the 26.2-mile mill stone against which I intend soon to hurl my own weary collection of bones.
And that is a comforting thought.
In addition to our recent run, we have begun to square away plans for traveling and staying in Okinawa--flights, hotels, cars, beaches, women (we have to call our mothers, of course). So the whole thing is beginning to emerge out of the surreal, shadowy corners of the warehouse and will soon be frighteningly close to getting slung flat, wrong-side up, onto the rusted bed of my grandpa's old Ford pickup. Time is short!
As I sit here, I find myself bombarded with all kinds of life-metaphors to draw out from this marathon--things about starting speed, training, companionship, refueling as you run, etc. But here's a matter in which the marathon offers no parallel that I can perceive: When it comes to running a marathon, you do most of you training and indeed most of your learning beforehand (though you of course learn things during a marathon, and while most of that might well apply to a later marathon, little of it, I think, goes to the race at hand). So the marathon, beast that it is, is still just a performance, a brief moment on the stage--it belongs on the highlight reel of life, not to the desperate, interminable hours spent prepping for, editing, and producing the thing. One does not (ideally) figure out the bulk of his strategy as he runs the race--that was all mostly taken care of in the countless hours of preparation long beforehand. So my tentative conclusion is that, while there are marathon-events in life, the race of life itself has boarders stretching far beyond the 26.2-mile mill stone against which I intend soon to hurl my own weary collection of bones.
And that is a comforting thought.
posted by Peter Rice at 5:25 AM
1 Comments:
Peter,
First of all I want to wish you a happy birthday. I meant to do this yesterday, but I allowed myself to be distracted by the first day back at school. I appreciate the comment that you left on my blog. I definitely agree with what you said, and I only hope that I do not allow myself to be held back by the OC social culture, no matter how drab it might be. I think it is really amazing that you are training for the marathon. It reminds me of all the times I heard you say, "Stephen, let's go faster." It was great to see you last week, and good luck in all of your exciting adventures in Japan. Make sure you watch plenty of Dragonball Z and "don't get eliminated!" Take care...
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