I remember a movie from 1966 titled “The Endless Summer” where these surfer dudes traveled to beaches all over the world looking for the perfect wave and the perfect ride. I believe this search for perfection exists in most sports. I know I’ve been attempting to run the perfect race, given my fitness level and ability at the time, since 1967.
This past weekend I ran one of the best races of my life. It came as close to perfect that my imperfect memory can recall. It wasn’t the fastest time, the best course, the best scenery, the best weather, or the longest distance. It was the way I ran the race and the mental discipline I maintained throughout the race that was the best ever, and only I can know and judge that.
There are earlier posts about running where I’ve described some of the elements of the perfect race. Those elements are -
1. I want a normal meal and normal sleep the night before. Sleeping isn’t so simple the night before an important race.
2. I want to warm-up in a fashion that does not tire me out prior to the race. I also want easy access to a restroom so I am not distracted by basic body functions during the race.
3. I want to position myself at the starting line where I am in front of slower runners and behind the faster runners. I don’t want to impede faster runners at the start and I don’t want to be impeded by slower runners. If the race isn’t too large and the road is wide enough, it won’t be a significant issue.
4. I want to go out at a pace that is comfortably uncomfortable. The first mile might be a little faster than I can maintain for the distance, but at least it gets me away from the pack of runners and engaged with competitors who are my equal or better.
5. I want to stay mentally engaged in the race at every moment over the entire distance. This is the most difficult and important element of the perfect race. My mind shouldn’t wander into distractions. My mind should stay focused on the current moment of existence and all the moments that lead to the finish line. My mind should be focused on maintaining my pace, and monitoring my physical and mental well-being.
6. I want to continually test my race pace uphill, downhill, and on the flats. I want to be sure that I am running at every moment throughout the race at the fastest pace I dare without dying a slow death over the last miles.
7. I want to be actively engaged in racing other runners, and let them be the only distractions I permit my mind. I want to use other runners as goals and achievements to be overtaken, using each to help buoy my spirits and efforts toward the finish line. Beating other runners isn’t the ultimate goal; they are just a fringe benefit.
8. In the final mile I want to go for it all. I don’t want to ignore the pain, but instead welcome it as a familiar friend. I want to welcome the pain because it tells me I’ve run the beginning and middle sections of the race correctly, and I am now doing what I came to do. I want my mind to push my body to its absolute limit. The pain is temporary, but the knowledge that I have done my very best will last a lifetime.
On Saturday, October 03, 2009 I ran an Atlanta Track Club 10k road race in Cartersville Georgia in 43:06 at the age of 57. Only I know if I actually did each and every element right that day, but I tell you honestly that it felt closer to perfect than it has in years. I think I can take a couple minutes off of that time with the right kind of mileage and speed work. That too is as it ought to be.
Friday, December 25, 2009
Thursday, December 17, 2009
I Need a Vacation
I’ve been working continuously since 1968 when I was 16-years old; that is 41 years and counting. I’ve worked in a restaurant, a factory, a college physical plant, a computing center, and in three offices. I’ve washed dishes, mopped floors, cleaned up vomit, hauled out garbage, shoveled mountains of corn, shoveled rock sulfur into a furnace, moved 50-pound bags of starch onto pallets, rolled 50-gallon drums of corn syrup onto railroad cars, driven fork-lifts and a 2-ton truck.
On the way home from one of my manual labor jobs during my college days I stopped by an office at school to see if they had a job opening. They never did, but I stopped in anyway, week after week, sometimes multiple times in a week, just to see if they had a job. My persistence resulted in a part-time job during the school year as they eventually hired me as a nighttime computer operator. Later on I became a programming tutor, again, at night and during the school year. By my senior year I was working 20 hours a week, carrying a full academic load majoring in both Math and Physics, and was a varsity athlete in track and cross country.
I eventually got a summer job in that college office. When everyone else went home for the day, I stayed for an extra hour to vacuum, empty the trash, and dust. I was happy to get an extra hour’s work and an extra hour’s pay I could put toward tuition.
I worked summers, Christmas break, and spring break. When I wasn’t in school, I was working. When I wasn’t working, I was in school. Eventually I was working while I was in school. I graduated from college in 1974. I graduated on a Saturday and I started my first “real” job on Monday, two days later. I was thrilled to be making $7,600 per year as a computer programmer.
Anyway, here I am 41 years later, with job responsibilities and dilemmas my 16-year old self could never imagine, working my butt off day after week after month after year after decades with nary a break. And I am thinking to myself, “I need a vacation.”
A decade or two might be enough.
On the way home from one of my manual labor jobs during my college days I stopped by an office at school to see if they had a job opening. They never did, but I stopped in anyway, week after week, sometimes multiple times in a week, just to see if they had a job. My persistence resulted in a part-time job during the school year as they eventually hired me as a nighttime computer operator. Later on I became a programming tutor, again, at night and during the school year. By my senior year I was working 20 hours a week, carrying a full academic load majoring in both Math and Physics, and was a varsity athlete in track and cross country.
I eventually got a summer job in that college office. When everyone else went home for the day, I stayed for an extra hour to vacuum, empty the trash, and dust. I was happy to get an extra hour’s work and an extra hour’s pay I could put toward tuition.
I worked summers, Christmas break, and spring break. When I wasn’t in school, I was working. When I wasn’t working, I was in school. Eventually I was working while I was in school. I graduated from college in 1974. I graduated on a Saturday and I started my first “real” job on Monday, two days later. I was thrilled to be making $7,600 per year as a computer programmer.
Anyway, here I am 41 years later, with job responsibilities and dilemmas my 16-year old self could never imagine, working my butt off day after week after month after year after decades with nary a break. And I am thinking to myself, “I need a vacation.”
A decade or two might be enough.
Friday, December 11, 2009
Group Runs
A group of runners on a training run is an interesting phenomenon. It is like a moving cocktail party without the cocktails. If there are sufficient numbers the conversation can be a lot of fun. I will say a couple words about something I read in the paper, or something strange that happened that week, then someone else has a relevant comment. Maybe another person disagrees. The chatter goes on and on. Eventually there are jokes, lies, slander, and insults. I’ve heard that most running groups have the exact same form of banter.
We might start out talking about master’s track and field. By the mile mark the conversation might segue naturally to Indian cooking classes (actually happened), then to the Tour de France by the two mile mark (same run), and by the four mile mark we are somehow talking about fast pitch softball and Wiffle Ball. (Same run!) We don’t generally change the topic mid-conversation; it’s just that one comment leads to another and you end up in the strangest, but most interesting places.
Everyone surely knows by now the many physical benefits or running and exercise. What isn’t widely known are the many mental health benefits of running. Several years ago I read that running with a group has a greater impact on psychological health than any form of group therapy. Regrettably, I could not find a justification for that claim on the web, but I did find a web site for women that listed the following benefits of running for women: positive state of mind, reduced tension and anxiety, decreased depression, increased quality of life, positive personality traits, stress resistance, fewer minor medical complaints, improved mental functioning, and greater awareness of health. Another web site listed stress relief, anxiety relief, runner’s high, confidence, reaching goals, mood booster, improved memory, decreased fatigue, fighting addiction, and positive relationships.
A run with my training colleagues never fails to lift my spirits. The camaraderie of the group gives me a satisfying sense of belonging. No matter what I say, more often than not there will be someone else who says, “Me too, been there, done that, felt that” and can commiserate and empathize with me. Yes, I may be a geeky nerd who runs, but there is a group of people who have accepted me into their fold, and that is comforting in ways that defy description.
We might start out talking about master’s track and field. By the mile mark the conversation might segue naturally to Indian cooking classes (actually happened), then to the Tour de France by the two mile mark (same run), and by the four mile mark we are somehow talking about fast pitch softball and Wiffle Ball. (Same run!) We don’t generally change the topic mid-conversation; it’s just that one comment leads to another and you end up in the strangest, but most interesting places.
Everyone surely knows by now the many physical benefits or running and exercise. What isn’t widely known are the many mental health benefits of running. Several years ago I read that running with a group has a greater impact on psychological health than any form of group therapy. Regrettably, I could not find a justification for that claim on the web, but I did find a web site for women that listed the following benefits of running for women: positive state of mind, reduced tension and anxiety, decreased depression, increased quality of life, positive personality traits, stress resistance, fewer minor medical complaints, improved mental functioning, and greater awareness of health. Another web site listed stress relief, anxiety relief, runner’s high, confidence, reaching goals, mood booster, improved memory, decreased fatigue, fighting addiction, and positive relationships.
A run with my training colleagues never fails to lift my spirits. The camaraderie of the group gives me a satisfying sense of belonging. No matter what I say, more often than not there will be someone else who says, “Me too, been there, done that, felt that” and can commiserate and empathize with me. Yes, I may be a geeky nerd who runs, but there is a group of people who have accepted me into their fold, and that is comforting in ways that defy description.
Friday, December 4, 2009
Suffering the Insufferable
I’ve met a lot of people over the years. I liked most of them, but I found a handful of folks to be difficult, if not impossible, to like. Their behavior made it so. Each of them had one or more objectionable traits that were so glaringly offensive that I just could not grant them an excuse. They weren’t all guilty of every offensive behavior, but collectively they were guilty of being insensitive, improper, arrogant, pompous, egotistical, aggressive, irritating, obnoxious, annoying, aggravating, rude, and selfish. (Boy did that feel GOOD!) I don’t think that I have chosen to dislike them. Instead I like to think that they, by their behavior, have chosen to make themselves unlikeable. That’s what I would like to think.
For example, there is a man who I have had no success in finding a way to like in any fashion. He is arrogant, aggressive, aggravating, and other words beginning with the letter “a” may apply. He shows up for meetings late, and leaves early. He talks incessantly as if his voice is the only voice that should be heard. He doesn’t have conversations; he delivers monologues. He eats up all the oxygen in any meeting room. You are wrong and he is right. His phone goes off in the middle of important meetings and he steps outside for ten minutes or more. His behavior says that he is more important than anyone else, or all of us put together.
Did I choose to dislike this man, or did he by his behavior dictate that it would be so? His behavior is so objectionable that it is difficult to set it aside and see anything positive beyond it. It’s like staring directly into a massive search light; I can’t possibly see anything beyond the light itself. It’s blinding. The same can be said for the other boors I’ve had the displeasure to meet.
And yet there is the Christian ethic to love your fellow man, or even more difficult, to love the unlovable. Will Rogers said “I never met a man I didn’t like” and the Bible says,
Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. If someone strikes you on one cheek, turn to him the other also. If someone takes your cloak, do not stop him from taking your tunic. Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back. Do to others as you would have them do to you. Luke 6:27-31
The platitudes are simple concepts. I know what I am supposed to do. I know what is right. And I also know how the ding-dong is going to behave; just like he always does, and I vow to do better, to be gracious to the ungracious, to suffer the insufferable, to suffer the fool gladly. I just wish that the ungracious insufferable fool wouldn’t make it so difficult for me!
And when I fail again for the umpteenth time it is especially hard to take. I knew how he would be, and I knew how I wanted to be, and to know that in advance and still fail fills me with a sense of shame and regret. I wanted to be bigger than I was in the past. I wanted to be better than before, but my blood boils in spite of all my mental preparations.
He is oblivious, and he can’t help himself. He cannot experience remorse because he is totally unaware of his bad behavior . . .
And I am painfully aware, and I still can’t help myself, and that is all the more galling.
Maybe next time I can be better than I am.
May God grant me the tolerance and patience to suffer the fools gladly . . . NOW!
For example, there is a man who I have had no success in finding a way to like in any fashion. He is arrogant, aggressive, aggravating, and other words beginning with the letter “a” may apply. He shows up for meetings late, and leaves early. He talks incessantly as if his voice is the only voice that should be heard. He doesn’t have conversations; he delivers monologues. He eats up all the oxygen in any meeting room. You are wrong and he is right. His phone goes off in the middle of important meetings and he steps outside for ten minutes or more. His behavior says that he is more important than anyone else, or all of us put together.
Did I choose to dislike this man, or did he by his behavior dictate that it would be so? His behavior is so objectionable that it is difficult to set it aside and see anything positive beyond it. It’s like staring directly into a massive search light; I can’t possibly see anything beyond the light itself. It’s blinding. The same can be said for the other boors I’ve had the displeasure to meet.
And yet there is the Christian ethic to love your fellow man, or even more difficult, to love the unlovable. Will Rogers said “I never met a man I didn’t like” and the Bible says,
Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. If someone strikes you on one cheek, turn to him the other also. If someone takes your cloak, do not stop him from taking your tunic. Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back. Do to others as you would have them do to you. Luke 6:27-31
The platitudes are simple concepts. I know what I am supposed to do. I know what is right. And I also know how the ding-dong is going to behave; just like he always does, and I vow to do better, to be gracious to the ungracious, to suffer the insufferable, to suffer the fool gladly. I just wish that the ungracious insufferable fool wouldn’t make it so difficult for me!
And when I fail again for the umpteenth time it is especially hard to take. I knew how he would be, and I knew how I wanted to be, and to know that in advance and still fail fills me with a sense of shame and regret. I wanted to be bigger than I was in the past. I wanted to be better than before, but my blood boils in spite of all my mental preparations.
He is oblivious, and he can’t help himself. He cannot experience remorse because he is totally unaware of his bad behavior . . .
And I am painfully aware, and I still can’t help myself, and that is all the more galling.
Maybe next time I can be better than I am.
May God grant me the tolerance and patience to suffer the fools gladly . . . NOW!
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