Two chapters into this journey, which apparently may go on for a few more pages now, I gave my effort a title: Accountability. And I want this to keep me accountable, so the title will stick, but as I was out running today it occurred to me that I could easily come up with a dozen other names for this project. ... “Fennel Fields” ... “The Morning Run” ... “What To Do When You’re Fifty Two”
I try not to think too much when I run. It slows down the pace and takes away from the pure meditation of the moment. For the same reasons I do not wear headphones when I run. Every once in a while, though, the flash of a thought occurs, and often as a brief spark no longer than a book title. ... “Head Up, Eyes Forward” ... “Steadily Better” ... “Uphill Is Forward And Ahead”
Now and then, at some detriment to my pace, a flash-thought bounces around for more than a few seconds. Today it was this: ... “Maybe I Oughta Join A Club”
A but more clunky than those other passing titles, and it stuck with me enough that later, off-track, my mind started to argue back. In the three years I’ve been running, with each gradual advancement I have found myself embracing my introversion, enjoying the personal accomplishment and defending the self-determinate nature of the run. More title here: ... “The Runner’s Achievements” ... “Daily Devotions” ... “The Joy Of The Distance” ... “Victory Is Mine”
That last one is part of the argument back, though, a stubborn spin to what Pheidippides reportely said at the end of his race. But it was not just “Nike” he delared, but “Nenikekamos,” or “Rejoice, victory is ours.” And I know better, don’t I? I mean to say, I know I am not alone on this run. Even as I pride myself for the personal adventure, I know I am picking up plenty of good pointers from others: Hydrate – Small sips, not big gulps – Keep that steady pace – Know when to stop – Mix it up, short and long – Carbs the night before – Three runs a week to be consistent, four to be serious – Don’t let a little rain stop you! These flashes are not my own titles but thoughts I’ve borrowed form other runners, things I’ve learned along the way. Maybe I really should join a club. But there are reasons I haven’t joined one yet and may not do so any time soon. Time management, keeping a spontaneous edge and finding simple contentment, to begin with. But there is another, more prevalent reason: I enjoy the discovery of the run and how I get things out of it I don’t expect, things that maybe others could teach me but probably not as pointedly as the run itself teaches me.
Running through a blackbird’s territory. Finding things to focus on ahead of me. Learning a good breathing pace. The blessing of a cool morning. An appreciation of rain. All sorts of possible titles.
And yesterday, apart from that runner’s club flash, I was taught a new lesson, and again it came as a quick spark I was not expecting. For all my planned runs and set daily distances, I have learned just yesterday, and today again, that it is refreshing to run without a plan now and then, or rather to get beyond the plan. Yesterday my intention was to run a hard-paces ten kilometers for time, but when I got to mile six, when I should have been exhausted form the push, I felt like stretching it a few more miles and the next thing I knew I had run as long as I had ever run. And then today I thought I would run an easier stretch, no more than five kilometers after yesterday’s twenty one. The first hundred meters seemed to corroborate that idea, as I was stiff and felt slow out of the gate, but the first mile’s pace turned out to be a fairly respectable 8:20, then the second mile was the same and the third was 8:10, even better. I was keeping pace, unexpectedly, and it did not feel right to stop while I was ahead so I kept on. Mile 4, an 8:20 pace. Mile 5, 8:20 again. Finally, at Mile 6, I slipped to 8:50, but that was okay, as it was already a better run than I had counted on. Pace is everything, a lesson already considered, but now, with feet to the trail, I was learning it and figuring out how to make it real, not by regimen but by simply allowing it to happen when it does.
It won’t be the same every day. Yesterday I set a new personal best; today was no record breaker but it was an even keel. Both days had distances and designs that weren’t in the lesson plans. As it should be from time to time.
Racing teaches us to challenge ourselves. It teaches us to push beyond where we thought we could go. It helps us to find out what we are made of. This is what we do. This is what it’s all about.
— Patti Sue Plumet,
U.S. Olympian, 1988, 1992
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