Post-COVID

Apparently COVID affects everyone uniquely. For me, there were about three days that felt like hell, followed by a rapid recovery. My symptoms peaked from last Saturday to Monday, then eased through Tuesday and Wednesday. I tested negative on Thursday.

Getting the virus was a harsh reminder of life priorities. At the apex of my symptoms, most of my material possessions ceased to matter again. That, at least, was refreshing.

I guess we often fool ourselves into thinking that we can purchase our way into permanence. Maybe that’s part of the lure or a “high quality purchase.” If the item lasts forever, we’re more apt to feel like we will as well. A shirt that disintegrates in three washes is oddly a reminder of ones own vulnerability.

It just takes one brutal virus to eliminate the hope of eternal life. If we’re dust in the wind, then we’re truly on borrowed time, and our possessions should be considered rentals at best. What price it is to pay for a house full of nice things that eventually end up in a dumpster.

My phone often shows me photo memories of times spent in China. I poured through some of these old photos more closely today and realized that I really liked that version of myself. He was less willing to give a damn about the quality of clothes, for example, and more apt to focus on having memorable experiences. He didn’t give a damn about “fit”. Clothes kept you warm, or shielded you from the sun. That was it, and it was freeing.

I don’t think it’s too late to go back to that version of myself. It doesn’t mean going back to China, but rather rejecting the materialism inherent in corporate America. It means accepting that your time on earth is brief, so you might as well enjoy it rather than constantly seeking false means of insurance against its end.

Injuries and Setbacks

My plan was to began preparing for an October 1st marathon starting the first week of July. However, a few setbacks derailed those plans.

The first issue stemmed from a timed mile event in late June. I completed a timed mile (about 1600 meters) in 4 minutes and 44 seconds, which I was happy with because my goal was to break 5 minutes. However, I found myself limping after the finish. A tweak in my groin became a lingering pain that steadily worsened over the next week, and I naively attempted to run through it, which only exacerbated the pain. I went to an orthopedic and was informed that I strained my groin.

A few weeks of rest and physical therapy followed, and suddenly it was August. I resumed running. I told my marathon coach that it seemed practical to have a “Plan B.” Less than two months didn’t seem like long enough to prepare for a marathon, so I switched my goal event to a later date. I signed up for another marathon on October 28th, and switched my October 1st event to a half marathon, with the intention to use the event as a training exercise.

Then, a week after resuming running, COVID hit me for the first time. Three plus years after the onset of the pandemic, COVID was the last thing on my mind. I had returned from a vacation in Utah and was suddenly running a fever. I was inside when the fever hit me, resting under a cool A/C. An hour later I had the chills. Then I had a sinus headache, and a sore throat. Then my bones ached.

The next day, I tested positive for COVID.

That was all last weekend. Now I’m hoping that the worst of COVID is behind me and I can resume running. This running cycle has been a stark contrast from the last one. The last one went off without a hitch, whereas this one seems to abide by the saying, “Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong.”

There is plenty of time left to develop fitness, however, so I don’t think I’m anywhere near the point of giving up.

Sunday Recap

Sunday morning I went for my weekly long run on the Katy Trail, starting at the Lewis & Clark Boathouse in Saint Charles and heading east. The skies were overcast and the temperature was mild for June. I felt much better than I had the previous few days. I ran for about 12 miles and felt fresh from beginning to end.

I had struggled with sleep for the better part of the last week. It’s an ongoing and maybe lifelong struggle. I finally slept decently Saturday night and was thankful for that. I’ve been trying a glass of kefir at night and it seems to be helping.

Sunday afternoon I watched The Flash, which I would describe as simple amusement. These superhero movies are difficult to justify a theater ticket price for, but I wanted to go to the cinema. Michael Keaton is very good in it. I’m a sucker for nostalgia and am a huge fan of the Tim Burton Batman movies. Having Keaton reprise his role as the dark knight was enough for me. Maybe that’s all a movie actually needs to be worth watching.

I’m digesting the new Avenged Sevenfold album, Life is but a Dream. So far my favorite song on the album is “Cosmic,” which seems to be about reincarnation and eternal love. A close second is probably “(O)rdinary.”

Five years ago I was in northeastern China and planning a beach trip to Dalian. Time is a subtle yet merciless adversary.

I finished the book Abdi’s World, which is an autobiography of one of my favorite athletes, Abdi Abdirahman. He’s the only marathon runner to qualify for five Olympics. There’s a key takeaway regarding his longevity: he’s capable of experiencing joy and fun.

I try to refrain from staring at my Garmin watch when I run for that reason. Fun should be the objective; it’s what will keep me going far after many of the young studs have hung up their shoes.

Some days we’re fast and other days we’re slow, but hopefully we’re smiling regardless.

The First 800 Meter Race!

Yeah, I actually participated in a track meet. A swammer, at age 37, entering himself in a track meet for a running race. Why not? Life is about trying new things, even if they’re a little uncomfortable. I don’t want to revisit the pool; I’ve chased the black line at the bottom enough times.

So I entered myself in the 800 meter run. I wanted to practice sprinting, and the 800 seemed like an intriguing distance. Compared to a marathon, at least, an 800 meter race is a sprint.

So I’m at a 400 meter track on a Saturday afternoon, it’s blazing hot, and the track has a black-colored surface. In other words, I’m running in a sauna.

They called my heat up and my lack of attention span immediately got the best of me. A meet official was explaining where we had to line up. I was distracted and staring at the clouds, honestly, and thinking about how cool my new bandana was. I wore it over my head as a sweat bandana.

I had bought the bandana the week before. It has a nice assemblage of desert-themed colors dyed onto it. Since I wore a racing team singlet, the bandana provided some stylistic flair.

Then before I knew it, the other runners were walking to the starting position. Oh crap, I thought. Where am I supposed to go? Maybe I should’ve paid attention. What is the starting position?

Then the gun went off and I started running. Whoops.

I wasn’t sure what an 800 meter track sprint should feel like, so I was a little conservative on the first lap. After crossing 400 meters I realized I had plenty of energy and picked my pace up a notch. I caught some runners and gained on the lead runner.

I finished in second overall, just a half-second out of first. The winner was 10 years my minor though. Not bad for an old dude with his head somewhere in the clouds I guess.

Next time I’ll take it!

Birdemic

There’s always going to be a “first” I guess. This morning I was attacked by a small bird while on a jog by the Riverfront.

I was caught by surprise when I felt what seemed like a mass of feathers falling into my hair. That’s weird, I thought. I’m not wearing a feathered hat right now.

Then I heard a hostile “caw” directly above me and felt wings flap and hit my face.

I reached a hand up to try and swat the bird away. The bird flew up a few feet while agilely dodging my swats, then dive-bombed me again. I felt one of its claws brush my cheek, but it narrowly missed scraping me.

What in the actual hell. First you’re stabbed by a tree branch, then you’re attacked by a psychotic tiny bird.

It was definitely tiny. We aren’t talking about a hawk here. This thing was about the size of a budgie, but wow did it have a Napoleon complex.

I’m sure it looked hilarious as I swatted at it and ran as fast as I could, while the bird dive-bombed me again and again. Eventually the bird gave up. Or maybe it found something more interesting to do this morning. I escaped unscathed!

My guess is that I ran through its territory during mating season or something. Why males gotta be like that?

Whatever the cause, I’ve been looking up towards the sky more frequently today. I might be for awhile.

As far as running goes, I’ve felt consistently pretty sore over the last week. I’ve been doing more speed-oriented running, which is a drastic change from marathon training.

My soreness has had me thinking of the inevitability of all things ending. At some point I will not be able to run like this. There will be a last marathon, a last day outside, and a last bird fight. There will also be a last swim and a last trip. Thinking of such a future brings me an intense melancholy. The best we can do is try to delay our inevitable decline. Yet the decline will happen, and fearing it won’t push it any further away.

The Fast and the Furious

So I watched Fast X last week. It is not a smart movie, nor is it one I had any business paying to see in theaters. I was entertained though.

There’s a scene where Vin Diesel’s character, Dom Toretto, knocks a giant rolling bomb into a river by launching his car into a construction vehicle with a ball wrecker. The construction vehicle’s wrecking ball ricochets and knocks the bomb off its intended path, falling into a river and exploding underwater. I laughed, but at least I wasn’t sleepy.

Literally every problem in the universe of this saga is solved by driving cars very fast. That’s a terrible philosophy for real life, but a great one for cinema.

In another scene the villain, played by Jason Momoa, says something to Dom along the lines of, “I’ve stolen everything from you!” before intending to blow him up with an explosive device. Dom replies, “You forgot to steal one thing: my car!” He then gets in a car and out-drives the explosion. Once again, I laughed out loud. But heck, I’d rather laugh at something than be bored by it.

Will I watch part 11? Probably. At least it isn’t one of those boredom inducers that plague Oscar season.

Speaking of fast and furious drivers, more people these days drive like maniacs, with borderline kamikaze-level reckless abandon. Stress is contagious and the recklessness of the modern driver seems symptomatic of a deeper problem. I’ve had a few encounters with genuine psychopaths behind wheels while on my morning jogs downtown. They don’t heed red lights, crosswalks, or pedestrians in general.

Beware the modern driver and look both ways. Save the dangerous encounters on the road for the Vin Diesel movies.

Form vs Function: Athletic Apparel

There’s a scene in the new movie Air that resonates well with me. The movie is about the creation of Nike’s legacy shoes, the Air Jordans.

In the scene, the shoe designer asks whether he should focus on form or function when creating the first version of the shoe. Function of course would tailor the design solely for athletic performance, potentially at the expense of style. Form would focus on aesthetic pleasure at the expense of performance.

After a brief pause, the designer gets an answer: “Form.”

When choosing most athletic apparel, I definitely prioritize form over function. That’s just me, and it would probably surprise some people if they knew this. I was an NCAA record holder in swimming, so I do have a competitive side to me, but it has never transferred to concern over the performance abilities of my apparel. I never saw enough of a correlation between apparel and performance to care much for a material item’s function. Especially recently, I’ve seen exercise more as an opportunity for self expression.

Life is short, after all, and my primary objective with any sport is to have fun. And for me, part of the fun is in wearing apparel that resonates with me artistically. It’s a chance to show some individuality. Form for the win, even if it means running in cotton.

After college I joined a Master’s swimming club (a club for working adults to train together) and was infamous for my signature “tuxedo speedo” (a speedo designed to look like a tuxedo). I liked it because it got a lot of laughs. It certainly wasn’t the fastest suit, but it was one of a kind (besides, if I’m a fast swimmer, I shouldn’t need a fast suit to perform well).

In cycling I’m usually drawn more to a brand’s style than any sort of performance edge it might provide. If the material performs well, that’s just a bonus. My personal favorite apparel company is Mission Workshop because their bibs and jerseys have eye-catching colors and sleek and trendy designs. The materials are also top-notch, but I’d probably buy from them regardless.

Running is similar for me. More important than the moisture-wicking ability of a tee is the message it conveys. If you’re a good runner, you’re a good runner, and you’ll move at a good clip in just about any shirt anyways. So I usually try to find designs that are kind of edgy and reveal a little about myself. Lately I’ve been into Parisian brand Satisfy Running. I think of them as a running brand with a punk rock edge. It’s sort of an anti-performance athletic apparel brand, though they do make items with high quality materials.

I picked up a few of Satisfy’s bandanas, which have become my favorite accessory. I joined a racing team that requires me to wear a team singlet at races, which means at least part of my event attire is already chosen. As a result, I need accessories to show some flair! A unique bandana is a perfect way to make the getup uniquely my own.

I’ve never bought the carbon-plated running shoes for a similar reason. A “5% performance gain” is not something I’ve honestly ever thought about when making a shoe purchase. I just try to ensure that the colors go well with my scheme (and that they feel good).

I think that my lifelong neglect of obsessing over how apparel performs has ironically helped me to stay motivated to exercise. After all, it prioritizes the merging of movement and art. It means I’m often as excited about what I’ll wear as I am about the exercise itself.

So, maybe it’s form for the win.

Minimalist Thoughts

A few days ago, someone asked me about minimalism. I had done a few local podcasts with a friend about minimalism and as a consequence I am sometimes viewed as a “minimalist.” Hopefully this website URL nixes that idea.

That said, this person asked me if I thought folding phones would be good for minimalism. “After all,” he said, “they take up less space.”

This very question underscores a deep flaw in a lot of minimalists: that ironically, they are still obsessed with things. The obsession with possessions has just switched to a preference for things with a “minimalist aesthetic.” The inner materialist is not destroyed, but rather transferred to new yearnings. Thoughts are still dominated by acquisition, but isn’t the purpose of minimalism supposed to be free oneself of consumerism?

I replied that if you want a phone that helps you to not give a damn about “things,” your best bet would be to have a phone that you don’t give a damn about. Get a cheap Motorola (if you actually need a new phone) or something that that is so low on the status totem pole, it’s unlikely to encompass any amount of time or thought at all. Don’t get a thousand dollar “folding phone.” After all, the whole idea of “minimalism” is to not place one’s focus on material possessions. I don’t think Seneca or any stoic would care about how big or small his phone was. Seeking more compact models that take up less space has the same end result as seeking iPhone upgrades: you’re still constantly looking for the next best thing.

This flaw in minimalism can also be seen in the pursuit of clothes. I know minimalists who are constantly seeking “more minimalist pants.” In most cases these are pants that serve multiple functions: pants you can bike, hike, travel, or go to the office in. They are pricier and tend to be made of more premium materials. And therein lies the issue: the pursuit of minimalist pants is a materialist pursuit. Whatever space you save in “wardrobe space” is negated by the time you lose thinking about pants.

If one was really seeking minimalist clothes, I think a more effective approach would be to shop for basic and affordable things and then forget about “how many things are in a wardrobe.” The whole idea is to not think about your wardrobe at all.

Live with imperfection. That’s the only way to really free yourself of consumerism.

I state this to emphasize the obvious: there is a maximalist lurking inside most minimalists.

An Ode to Discomfort

Life does not provide a final finish line. There is no end to discomfort until the cessation of life itself. If a cool breeze braces your cheeks at the end of a competition, you should still anticipate the turbulent storm that is bound to follow.

I think most adults believe the act of growing up deserves them a lifetime of ease and painless sustenance. In the west particularly, adults tend to shun struggle, believing the rest of their years should be lived without pain. They “deserve” comfort, they seem to tell themselves. It’s somehow a reward for “struggling through youth.” So, they seek air conditioning, the drive-through, the chair, booze, television, gluttony, and phones. They adult bicycle collects dust if its owner fears the dirt outside. It is those who embrace the chaos outside who last the longest.

I try to avoid comfort as though it’s a disease I wouldn’t touch with a ten-foot pole. I aim to thrive in chaos and live well in the maelstrom. Pain is a necessary part of living and the precursor to growth. Without pain there is no life.

How have I embraced pain lately?

Somehow I managed to bike ten miles home immediately after breaking my collarbone and hitting my head hard enough to not know what year it was.

I bike commuted 20 miles to work in sub-zero temperatures winter mornings over the past few years, while gusts of wind sometimes rocked me with sleet. I learned to change tires on the side of the road while my fingers numbed.

Tolerating pain helped me train for a marathon while my right arm was still broken and unable to swing naturally in stride.

I finished a long run after my face was stabbed by a tree branch (and drove myself to a nearby Urgent Care to have my face stitched afterwards). I laughed as the nurse stitched me up. I now embrace this scar, whereas many would be “distraught by the imperfection.”

It’s why my old teammates at the University of Texas called me “The Manimal.” They knew I can absorb higher loads of pain than most.

My tolerance for pain helped me learn to run after 36 years of just swimming and lifting, and it’s how I ran my first marathon at age 37. To get back in the pool and beat people my age at swim meets seemed too easy. I wanted more discomfort.

When a car hit me in 2021 and tore up my right foot, I shrugged it off and decided that I’d eventually return stronger than ever. I’d run faster than ever as a final revenge to that shitty driver.

I don’t believe a pain-free day will arrive, nor should it, and I try to embrace pain’s inevitable return. I can’t rest on my laurels.

Discomfort keeps me honest. It keeps me strong, alive, and fiery. It is the best friend I’ve ever had.

Know Yourself

I run along a small section of the Riverfront Trail several mornings a week. It’s a one-and-a-half mile straight path, paved along the Mississippi River, spread directly in front of the St. Louis arch.

On this path, someone spraypainted “Know Yourself” in bold and colorful font on some raised cement barriers. It’s probably been there for years. I cross it on almost every run and on some days, if I’m feeling spry, I jump over it.

I think that knowing yourself is a challenge on two fronts. First, it takes courage to test your mental and physical limits. You have to pass a threshold to know where the threshold lies, and that involves pain. Significant, significant pain. Second, knowing yourself means confronting your dark side, and that takes courage. Just look to Luke Skywalker or Jung for reasons why. The dark side is an ugly place and a convenient one to turn a blind eye towards. I’m not sure most are willing to look at their demons with eyes wide open. The dark side of the human soul can reach horrifying depths, but overcoming one’s dark side first requires accepting its existence and seeing what lurks there.

Knowing yourself, the good and the bad, probably nurtures some self-confidence. It leaves you impervious to external remarks because you create your self-perception internally. Verbal attacks tend to hurt most if you accept them as reality, and you’re more likely to accept any opinion if you don’t know who you are. If what your attacker says is true, but you recognize it as true and have already confronted it within yourself, you can shrug off the attack. That’s essentially how Eminem’s character won the rap battle at the end of 8 Mile.

Recently I told someone that one of my goals with endurance running was longevity: that I want to keep running and cycling into my 80s and even 90s. That’s the truth, besides simply enjoying the exercise: I do it because I want to live. The races are just a fun bonus. I was laughed at for saying that. Well, what can ya do? Everyone has haters. “You run marathons for longevity!? Yeah right.” Later in the conversation I was sarcastically called “Longevity Matt.”

It would be easy to feel offended by the skepticism, but I shrugged it off. I know what I want well enough to discard external critics. Maybe five years ago I’d have taken it personally. Age has at least given the gift of “knowing myself” better, and knowing yourself begets wisdom.

I can only conclude that literally jumping over physical barriers, especially barriers with a message such as “Know Yourself,” is a healthy daily ritual.

Some Reflections on Free Will

I find the concept of free will to be an interesting one, and like any interesting topic, there are arguments both for and against its validity.

In the scope of human history “free will” is a relatively new concept. It seems to have propagated alongside capitalism and Protestantism. Its opponents may argue that it’s nothing more than a marketing scheme for an ideology. That scheme goes something like this: “you have complete control of your own destiny, so long as you work really, really hard.” This more or less keeps the wheels of private enterprise turning and the masses obedient.

It seems opposite to the Shakespearean plays that rose in the centuries before the Industrial Revolution, in which the protagonist was often pushed by the turbulent and all-powerful current of the universe, with a fate predetermined and unavoidable. The act of “paving one’s own path” was seen as an obscenity and typically punished with a violent death. Macbeth is given his fate at the beginning of the play, and we only have to wait to find out how he meets it.

Even if one has some element of free will on a societal level, possessing the ability to switch economic classes or elevate from poverty, I find it questionable that one could have complete individualistic free will. Everyone is on their phones all day, after all, behaving just as technology companies program us to. We buy insurance at the consensus that it will protect us from harm, only for insurance companies to profit (and avoiding insurance is nearly unavoidable, and seen as sacrilegious). We are therefore, to an extent, slaves to our own compulsions and thought patterns. Said compulsions can be programmed by almost anyone with a mastery of the human mind. We can therefore be exploited for profit or other gains, and all of us are to some extent.

We tell ourselves we “choose” to look at our phones, unaware that we do so under the manipulation of technology. And maybe this how it is with all things. Free will, then, would be a consumerist ploy.

The question then is whether choice actually exists, and what evidence there is for its existence. If you believe that we are all pawns in a very large scheme, then our minds are simply reacting as expected at each move of exterior forces. We are “dust in the wind.” That does seem likely. Yet some people are unpredictable, and this is where I find the fun. I personally enjoy people capable of surprising me and defying expectations. They seem the most likely types to possess the ability to truly “choose.” If they are in the throes of a current they can’t control, it’s at least a unique one that doesn’t move straight.

Nicolas Cage, for example, is the only actor I can’t pigeonhole. There doesn’t seem to be a pattern to his film choices or even his acting style. He seems hell-bent on swimming against the current that pushes everyone else in their expected direction. He follows a big-budget action film with a flop, and a cartoonish performance with a subdued one. The other actors who regularly attend events such as the Academy Awards seem manufactured by their own industry to “aim for awards.” I don’t find them interesting in the least. Cue ceremony to “see who won best actor” this year. Who cares? It’s the same self-indulgent faces every year.

Nicolas Cage’s unpredictability suggests he can’t be controlled, and an uncontrollable human being is most likely to have true “free will.”

I can only conclude that although our behaviors do seem controllable to an extent, we also maintain the ability to surprise, to break routine, to “create art,” and to argue against consensus. Free will seems closest to a real thing when we defy expectations and break routine, when we take risk and laugh in the face of herd mentality. We may have some individualism if we find the courage to express it, even in spite of a powerful current that we are all more or less drifting in.

How will we surprise ourselves today?

Return to the Riverfront

The aftermath of the marathon involved about three days of total rest and another two weeks without intensive exercise.

I think it’s important to fully heal both mind and body after a taxing event such as a marathon. I’d rather not return to running until every joint feels fresh and limber. I’d rather err on the side of too much rest than not enough.

This week I returned to cycling on the Riverfront trail. It was my first time on a bicycle since I broke my collarbone last November, nearly two full seasons ago. There was some anxiety in getting back on the bicycle, as expected. My pace was much slower than it was last year, as expected. I made it though, and it was nice to trigger the endorphins through the act of pedaling.

Mid-ride along the Mississippi River I saw the same family of turkeys loitering about that I often encountered last year. Upon seeing me they dashed to the nearby underbrush to hide, as they always did before. The foliage around me was a lush green and I was hit a by harsh wind that pushed from the south. My bike crawled forward where it once zoomed.

I think it’d odd that in the time it took for nature to decay and be reborn, my collarbone broke and self-repaired.

Lately I’ve had recurring dreams of a return to competitive swimming. In each dream I’m my current age and attempting to swim with programs from my youth. In each dream, my return is something of an intrusion. The swimmers and coaches don’t want me. Worse yet, they’re confused as to why I’d want to return. Didn’t I do all of this already? Why repeat the past? In the dreams, I am oblivious to the signs around me that life moves on and I am no longer physiologically the same. Age brings new priorities. I shouldn’t be ignorant to what they are.

I think that I am well aware that a downward physical slope is inevitable, and probably near. I also have no interest in returning to swimming. Maybe the dream is a reminder not to get caught up in my own obsession with performance. Life is short, after all, and time devoted to competition is time wasted not enjoying oneself.

It’s also a reminder that I’m given the option to have fun. I can take the opportunity or make exercise something burdensome. Why not take advantage of that opportunity and smile?

Story of a Marathon

I barely slept the night before my first marathon. I managed two hours of sleep at best. That’s typical for a night before a race. As a college swimmer, I rarely slept before the first session of NCAAs. The good news is, a sleepless night before a race is so routine for me now that it doesn’t phase me.

I woke up at about 4:00 am and quickly made myself a smoothie with some banana and pineapple. I stretched and foam rolled for about 30 minutes, made myself a pour-over coffee, and left for the metro with my girlfriend, who was going to run her first marathon with me.

We arrived at the race start about an hour early. It was still dark and about 37 degrees Fahrenheit. I had a long sleeve tee, a hoodie, and sweatpants over my racing apparel.

Time seemed to be moving at breakneck speed. Suddenly I was standing behind the inflatable arch where the race was to start. I was in “Corral A” because I entered myself at an optimistically fast time. Thousands of runners were lined up behind me. Better prove you belong in Corral A, I thought.

I moved around and tried my best to keep my mood jovial. I did some mock “dance moves” and smiled. It’s important to stay relaxed before any sort of race so that the muscles and lungs work as they’re trained to. I took off my hoodie and long sleeve tee so that I was only wearing a singlet, racing shorts, and a hydration belt. I tossed the hoodie and tee aside. Some lucky person will have those now.

In that hydration belt, I managed to stuff seven energy gels and two 500 mL water battles filled with electrolytes.

Suddenly the race started and it was as though I was moving in a current filled with thousands of fish. I told myself that I’d be conservative for the first few miles. I passed some runners and I was passed by others; I paid no mind. The first mile, in particular, felt like I was just stretching the joints through the act of jogging.

My watch suddenly beeped to signify that I had crossed mile one. My first mile was 6:47 (4:13 km) and I had plenty of energy to spare. That pace was much faster than my goal pace of 7:30 per mile. I removed my cheap gloves; my body was heating up quickly.

Mile 2 was uphill and I eased my effort a bit more to conserve energy. My game plan involved being conservative for the first 18 miles. I had never never run a full marathon, after all, so I needed to ensure that I finished. My watch beeped and mile 2 ended: 6:51. I knew then that I was going to hit a good overall time, barring an unknown setback.

Miles 3 through 12 involved a series of loping hills through downtown Saint Louis. I accelerated a little while running downhill and slowed while going uphill. My overall pace actually quickened. I was often talking to people, giving spectators fun gestures, and smiling. It felt like I could go all day. I figured this was how I should be feeling for my first marathon.

At mile 12, the half-marathon runners diverged from the marathon runners. This was one of the main challenges of the race: there was no way to really tell who was doing what. We all started together.

If I was initially swimming downstream with an army of fish, then it was as if I and a select few other fish diverged into a much smaller tributary, leaving the half marathon group behind.

Suddenly there were much fewer runners and spectators. What once felt like a festival suddenly got lonely.

Miles 14-16: I had a back-and-forth race with a larger and more muscular man wearing a hydration vest. This is the odd thing about the marathon there are races within the race (makes me think of the movie Inception and its premise of people having dreams within dreams). In t his showdown I would speed up, then he’d speed up, then I’d speed up. Neither wanted to give way. This was probably my biggest mistake of the marathon. Eventually I overtook him and never saw him again, but my victory came at a significant cost that I wouldn’t realize until later.

Miles 17 and 18 were mostly downhill and I accelerated my pace even more, thinking I should take advantage of the downhill miles. This was the second mistake of the marathon. Parts of the legs actually have to work harder to run downhill. Between this move and the race I had with the muscular guy earlier, I would soon be much more fatigued than I planned. My initial plan was to keep my feet on the brakes until after mile 18.

Mile 19 hit as I entered the Saint Louis Arch park. It began with a steep incline into the park. My hamstrings seized almost immediately as I went uphill, and I was shocked that they started to cramp. This can’t be, I thought. I’ve been feeling so good all day. They can’t give way now. In fact, I had never had a leg cramp during a run. I can’t be sure, but I think that my hamstrings paid a price here for my earlier race with the muscular guy.

My stride shortened, my legs tightened, and a runner passed me. I kept running, but my form was deteriorating. I weighed some options in my mind: I could either stop and stretch the legs before continuing, or I could just keep running and hope that the cramping eased.

I decided to keep going. I felt that stopping ran the risk of not being able to start again.

I ran past a large crowd, where several members of my running group cheered for me. This gave me a boost of momentum. I drank a large amount of electrolytes from my hydration belt. Minute by minute, my cramping subsided. I was in the clear. My pace quickened a little. I was okay.

Miles 20 through 26 would be on the Riverfront Trail, where I run every week.

Though my legs never fully regained their freshness, they managed to keep running at a desirable pace. Even during the race I was regretting that earlier battle with the infamous muscular guy. The cost of that small victory was a significant amount of pain in the final miles.

The Riverfront Trail went 3 miles north alongside the Mississippi River, then took a roundabout before returning south, where the marathon finish line waited.

I checked my watch. I was on track for a marathon time that was about 20 minutes faster than I thought I could go. I had to keep running though, and my legs already had one close call.

Another brief-yet-steep hill caused my hamstrings to seize again. I felt the early signs of cramps return. Please, universe, I thought, don’t let me cramp. I want this finish too bad. My range of motion lessened and I felt like I was trotting without bending my knees. I couldn’t stop though; I was too close to the end.

I drank the last of my electrolytes and had my final gel. My pace slowed further and my legs kicked up less. But, after a few minutes of slower running, the cramps somehow eased again. My pace quickened a little and I felt that I was in the clear.

I passed a crowd of volunteers working an aid station. One of them told me I only had two miles to go. I nodded, but refused a water. Hell, I thought, I only have fifteen more minutes. What good will another water do at this point?

I regained a little form and managed to pass a runner with one mile to go. I knew by this point that I was going to make it. I was going to run the entire marathon without stopping. I could feel a burgeoning excitement.

I heard a steady crescendo of cheers as I neared the finish. I left the Riverfront Trail. I was minutes away. The finish was on the other side of an abandoned cluster of buildings. I ran past the buildings and my pace quickened a little more. Some energy returned to me.

I had to continue straight ahead for another quarter mile before turning right. Then I had to run up a steep hill; the finish was at the crest of the hill. What a cruel joke to play on a marathon runner.

As I made that final right turn, I gazed up the hill. I saw the inflatable arch where the course ended. A clock hung from overhead.

It read: “2:59:20.”

I realized that I could break 3 hours in my first marathon if I hurried. I hauled myself up the hill, abandoning all thought, just wanting to cross as quickly as possible. I threw up some “peace” signs for the crowd, to make it look like I wasn’t in severe agony, though I definitely was.

My final time was 2:59:54. I crossed and hunched over. I breathed deeply.

I had just completed my first marathon. I bit my lower lip. Everything hurt and I wanted to cry, not so much from the physical pain as from the emotional triumph. I felt like I had endured enough on this journey. I was hit by a car while cycling. Then I broke my collarbone in yet another cycling crash. Then I was stabbed in the face by a tree branch. I had done my share of “getting back up after a fall.” I needed to stay up as I finished the marathon, and I did. My shoulder, back, and hip have scars from my falls. I removed the stitches from my stab wound the day before the marathon.

And yet there I was, standing past the finish line, a marathon finisher. I closed my eyes. Don’t cry, I thought. Don’t you dare cry.

I walked around for a bit and absorbed the moment. I trained hard for this, so that I could say for the rest of my life that I can run the marathon.

I also realized that my time qualified for the Boston Marathon; it wasn’t part of the plan, but qualifying feels great. I’m definitely planning to attend next year.

I stuck around and watched the other finishers. My girlfriend finished the marathon as well and ran up the finish triumphantly. We experienced our first marathon together, which is icing on the cake. Or maybe it is the cake. Anyways, we finished and half-limped home.

What is the aftermath? A whole lot of soreness coupled with happiness. It’s to say that you did something extremely challenging, something that would involve setbacks along the journey and plenty of reasons to give up, but you pushed through it all and somehow managed to run 26.2 miles without stopping. And to show those close to you that it can be done.

I‘m going to rest for a few weeks and enjoy life. I’ll get back on the bicycle in the next few days.

And in the back of my mind, I’m planning how to make the next marathon even better. You never know when the last one will be, but I hope that was the first of many.

Pre-Marathon Day

Tomorrow is the marathon I’ve been training for through all of 2023: the Saint Louis GO! Marathon.

The training cycle was perfectly imperfect. I liken it to a work of art that has what appears to be a major flaw; ironically it is the flaw that renders it beautiful. The Sistine chapel draws attention because it’s bent. I realize that my own marathon is not comparable to the Sistine chapel. What I mean to say is that the flaws that initially appeared to be major detriments actually ended up helping the bigger picture.

The cycle began shortly after a collarbone break and ended with a face laceration that required stitches. Through the training plan, though, I somehow managed to complete every single run that was listed on my plan. I only missed a run the first week, when my collarbone was still in too much pain to jog. It almost seems ironic that my legs have never felt healthier and I’ve simultaneously never endured more random accidents.

Time showed that the setbacks helped spur motivation. I gained as much from the difficult moments as I did from the “good days.”

On my last group run, which was one week before the marathon, I found myself running uphill through a neighborhood, completely alone. It was shortly after dawn and the sun’s glare was nearly blinding.

I focused my eyes for an instant on the sidewalk beneath me, which was often crooked, broken, and holed. I wanted to be sure that I didn’t roll an ankle. And in that instant I felt something stab me beneath my left eye. I knew immediately the stab wasn’t good.

A few seconds later I realized that I’d been stabbed by a low-hanging and jagged tree-branch. I knew it was bad, but was unsure how bad.

I completed the run, sat in the car, and removed my sunglasses. As I did so, a river of blood poured down my left eye. The stab cut me open just beneath the eye. I knew immediately that the cut would require stitches.

I drove to a nearby Total Access Urgent Care, where a nurse cleaned the wound with saline and stitched it up. The cut ran deep; I could tell that both from the saline’s burn and from my own reflection.

How on earth does one get stabbed by a hanging tree branch? I don’t know, but I guess there’s a first time for everything.

It’s important to remember that it could always be worse. I was told that if the tree branch managed to hit the eye, just half an inch higher, I’d likely have lost the eye entirely.

It almost seemed like a fitting closure that my first long run began immediately after healing a collarbone break that resulted from a fallen tree stump, and my last run ended immediately after getting stabbed in the face by a tree.

It seems tree branches and stumps are something to be conscious of going forward.

I’m fine, and this week’s runs felt as I wanted them to. Tomorrow is the marathon. I had my stitches removed this morning, just in time. My legs are fresh and the wound on my face is closed.

Tomorrow I’ll embark on a 26.2 mile run for the first time. To be honest, I’m not nervous: I think it’ll be a good experience.

If there’s one thing my life has prepared me for, it’s to embrace imperfection. I think it’s in an endurance athlete’s nature, or at least the nature of most endurance athletes, to want control over every variable. I learned a long time ago that this is impossible. We aren’t robots, though we want to install ourselves with perfect programming. Our minds are fallible and our bodies are asymmetrical. It’s only through the embrace of the imperfect that we can attain some semblance of peace of mind.

Though this training cycle began and ended with some rare injuries, I believe my run tomorrow will begin and end with a smile.

Revisiting a Stream

Yesterday evening I found myself revisiting a random assemblage of childhood memories. They arrived with no real theme or anything to tie them together. They had no reason to present themselves at all, really. I must have unwittingly removed a filter that hid them.

One such memory was of lounging at a neighborhood swimming pool on a peak summer day and eating pizza (I was about 12), while swatting away the North Carolina horseflies. Another was of a final high school trip to a comedy club with my classmates after graduation. It was the last time I ever saw many of them.

I often think that as years pass, there becomes less and less to tie me to my own memories. Cells change, die, and are replaced. I am less of who I was yesterday than who I was ten minutes ago, never mind ten years ago. And the person 20 years ago who experienced these events now seems to exist only in these fragmented scenes that sometimes play, in kaleidoscopic fashion, in my mind.

I think that as nostalgic as I can be for the naivety of adolescence, even returning to these places I once lived would not elicit the same feelings. Rick Rubin describes it in his book The Creative Act: A Way of Being like this: you cannot really cross the same stream twice because the water is always different. Similarly, the place is different, the people are different, and I am different.

These thoughts lead me to believe that it would be nice if our minds could absorb every minute of every scene we experience, and maintain that memory permanently. But the mind has limited RAM; it lets go of things that it arguably shouldn’t. As the mind ages, it does the opposite of what we wish: it loses much of the past when we wish to maintain all of it. And the older the memory, the weaker the circuitry in the program that is the self. We need photos or videos to evoke the feelings we had, and even then we can only experience some diluted version of the memory.

It is tragic, and yet it also heightens the importance of fully absorbing the present moment. Now can only be experienced once.

Monday Idling

I took a morning walk to a nearby Starbucks early Monday morning. Outside was a nice idyllic atmosphere; the sun gilded everything, a few cats were on the hunt, and there was little noise except the chirping of some birds.

There was a surprisingly tranquil vibe inside the Starbucks. Two men were quietly reading their books beside an artificial fireplace with no distractions on their tables. It seemed like a reminder of what used to be, the world before smartphones and white collar cubicle jobs. Or maybe it was a reminder of what Monday could potentially be: a world without hustle culture and the “quest for the best.” What a nice way to start a Monday, I thought. In fact if everyone started their Monday by reading in a coffee shop, I’d bet we’d have far fewer issues.

I sat, sipped an espresso, and reflected on my dreams the night before. All seemed still for awhile.

There was no stress in the coffee shop. Stress is very visible and its presence is like a powerful electromagnetic field; you just know when it’s in the air. It’s written on every line, on every face, of the hustlers and botherers of the world: those politicians, pushers, managers, and marketers who never seem to stop prescribing things for you. Yet chronic stress is prescribed in their anti-anxiety meds. Ironically, stress is the harbinger of death. Yet hustle culture says it’s okay to be chronically stressed, because you have to “work for performance.” The only way to espouse this message convincingly is to convince the employee that he or she may somehow live forever. This hoodwink comes in the form of false promises of “security” and “retirement packages.” Indeed, “life security” seems to be the modern world’s version of promises “eternity in heaven.”

No rush hour, no drive-through, no engorging crappy processed food on the way to the office, no 7 am emails. Yes, this Starbucks trip was a glimpse of a better world. Ironic that it occurred in a corporate chain, but still a nice experience.

I approve the routine of these two men who took the time to read their books on Monday morning.

I felt some of the fatigue in my own legs on the walk back. This fatigue was from the 30 miles of running I did over Saturday and Sunday, finally settling in.

The experience made me decide that after this marathon, I’ll do a lot of idling before starting my runs and bike rides again. As far as hustling goes… “I’d rather not.”

The Great Keynesian Error

In 1930, famous economist John Maynard Keynes predicted that we would eventually have a 15-hour work week. Technology would become so efficient at generating GDP and wealth, he believed, that we simply would no longer need to do much. Our machines would do most tasks for us.

What a horrible miscalculation that proved to be!

Fast forward to 2023. One recent study found that 41% of Americans in “white collar” professions reported feeling extreme stress and burnout.

It’s estimated that more than half of American workers do not have the time to take a proper lunch.

Another estimated 31% of American workers are working on weekends.

Americans are leaving millions of unused vacation hours behind every year.

Indeed, Americans self-report being overworked, overstressed, and underslept. And these are all contributors to obesity, anxiety, depression, and cardiovascular disease. A lack of sleep is believed to play an especially significant factor in cognitive diseases such as Alzheimer’s and dementia.

There’s a recent award-winning film titled Everything Everwhere All At Once. I can’t help but think that this aptly describes the mindset of our modern hustle culture. “I have to do everything and be everywhere, all at once, in order to be successful.”

That is a chase that ends with a decrepit body, a cabinet of meds, and a retirement package to pay for your nurses during your final years spent in inertia.

True bravery means going against the grain. I don’t applaud those who “work overtime” for the sake of a good performance review. That’s just running with the herd. I respect the person willing to slow things down and prioritize himself or herself in spite of the nagging botherers of the world who call this “slacking.”

It seems too often, in my opinion, that the quest for self-optimization is a quest to be what is essentially a soulless machine. It is why we surround ourselves with increasingly more machines: we yearn to be them. The chase for the best nutritional supplements and skincare products, the constant seeking of better pay and better fitness via gyms and watches… one would think we’d have evolved into an entirely new species from all of this chasing. And yet we’re arguably less healthy than ever, thanks to this modern religion that is “hustle culture.”

Keynes was wrong primarily because he didn’t account for the human tendency to always want more. Coupled with the Protestant work ethic espoused by corporate white collar management, this means that self-improvement can only mean finding the capability of doing more in what little time you have. What place does self-satisfaction have in hustle culture? The answer is none.

The ultimate irony is that the more you try to do, the more life you lose. Time ironically slows dramatically, and therefore becomes more favorable, when every hour isn’t spent cranking out standard operating procedures while frantically checking emails. One of the worst sins of all is ubiquitous: coffee is slurped but not tasted.

In this quest for more, there is a nightmarish eternal ladder climb in which every attempt at the top rung finds one lower than he or she was at the start.

Get some good sleep and enjoy the taste of your coffee, I say.

Running 20 Miles

Today I hit what was probably my best run yet. My coach assigned me a two hour and thirty minute run, with about 45 minutes of it at marathon goal pace. I’m late in my training cycle, which means I’m doing a higher percentage of event-specific work. This equates to a lot more “goal marathon pace” runs.

The run ended up being just over 20 miles (32 km), the longest run of my life. Better yet, it felt pretty good. By pretty good I mean, body parts weren’t straining, tearing, cracking, wobbling, or shutting down, and I also didn’t lose consciousness. I’d be lying if I said I hit mile 20 and said out loud, “damn do I feel great!” So good is a relative description of feeling as far as 20 mile runs go.

Adaptation to long runs is a slow process. I didn’t get to this marker overnight, though it may seem that way since I just started blogging about my running journey. I’ve jogged routine 5ks for years upon years. Last year I finally built up to a half marathon; a marathon is simply the next logical step.

My marathon preparation, like many things, is partly a result of COVID. With everything shut down, I was fortunate to realize the value of being outside. I needed the outdoors because the claustrophobia of being inside with little interaction was suffocating. And what better way to explore the outdoors than to learn how to run and ride a bike?

I felt light on my feet the first two miles and knew pretty early that this would be a good session. By “light on me feet” I mean that a brisk pace (for me) felt effortless. Some days you feel like you’re floating. Others, like you’re Atreyu’s horse from Neverending Story, Artax, drowning in quicksand.

I crossed the Saint Louis Arch around mile 1, descended via an inclined walkway down to the Riverfront Trail below it, and then embarked on what is essentially a long 9 mile stretch north alongside the Mississippi River (and back). There are some brief-yet-steep hills during the first few miles, but the rest of the path is mostly flat.

I remembered to wear sunscreen this time after the pale winter sunlight managed to burn me the week before (courtesy of Nordic ancestors). Three hours later and I see no signs of sunburn, so that’s good. Nothing like telling people you got burned by running on a Saturday morning during winter.

I practiced fueling again; I took one gel before starting the run and an additional four gels during the run, each separated by about three miles. This time I wasn’t hacking my lungs out due to the gels’ gooey substance, so that’s also good.

I averaged sub-7 minute miles on my marathon goal pace, and that’s great for me. Granted, I overdid the effort a little. My ideal pace for a marathon should be about ten seconds per mile slower than what I hit today. I was a little overzealous. Sometimes though, you just need to know your limit and take a risk. I learned that as an elite swimmer. I was glad that I held a steady pace and finished strong.

The final two miles were odd because by the time I returned to the Arch, it was flooded with tourists. Some of them were more than happy to take up the entire walkway while strutting by in large groups without giving so much as an inch of space for a lone runner. They typically do this because they’re staring at their phones while walking. Other tourists would stop and take photos on the “far side” of the walkway so that you inevitably run through their shot.

One angry Karen-like woman who was in the process of taking a photo of the Arch even managed to bark at me while I ran, “Stay out of my shot!” I kept running and smiled. Note that I was on a walkway with nowhere else to go, unless I turned around, which I was definitely not going to do. Also note that the Arch is an inanimate object that will not move an inch within the next century. The “shot” wasn’t exactly going anywhere.

On a side note, if you aren’t sure what a “Karen” is… Wikipedia defines it as “a slang term for a white woman perceived as entitled or demanding beyond the scope of what is normal.”

I believe it’s important to ignore miserable people rather than let them suck you into their abyss of gloom. Emotions are contagious. If you’re happy and have a strong enough reality in which your happiness resides, you’re likely to make a lot of people around you happy. If you engage with anger, you’ll create more anger. That’s just how the universe works, or at least from what I’ve seen. So I deflected the comment and kept running. It was too nice outside to deprive myself of joy. And hey, if you can’t wait two seconds for a runner before taking your precious little photo of an inanimate object made of steel, learning some patience might be of benefit. Just saying.

So I finished my 20 miles and my legs felt thankfully healthy. I’m four weeks away from my first marathon and I can feel the excitement building. I have a goal time, but to be honest, I’ll just be happy to cross the finish. I think that alone will be a remarkable experience.

Marathon Training Update

I’m one month away from running my first marathon. It’s been a journey and I think that I’m adapting to endurance running well.

Last Saturday was my longest run yet—a 19.6 miler (31 km) along the Riverfront Trail near downtown St. Louis. It was a stellar run that I really should be thrilled about (I think at the end I was too tired to be thrilled). The first seven miles were supposed to be relatively easy, followed by another seven-ish miles at marathon race pace. The remaining miles were easy again.

The first seven miles featured some of the breeziest sub-8 minute mile running I’ve done. I felt light and lithe, and the running felt effortless, like I didn’t have to force anything. That’s the best feeling; it erases all mental stress of “hitting a pace right.” As a swimmer, it’s what you hope to feel during warmups before any big race. Thanks to my swimming days, I know that this typically means I’m due for a good day. Note that it isn’t always the case, but it does tend to be.

The seven miles at marathon pace were difficult, and I may have overstrained a little in an attempt to keep the pace under 7 minute miles. However it was also less strenuous than the week before, which is a good sign because the duration was also longer. The week before I had about 4 miles at marathon pace. Next week I should dial back the effort on marathon pace so that it actually resembles my marathon pace. Note to self.

The run took me all the way to the Riverfront park, approximately 9 miles north of my apartment, before I turned around. I was alone on the trail with the exception of a few cyclists. The sun was surprisingly strong, which I didn’t fully grasp until my sunburn settled in afterward.

One thing noteworthy about this run was the accumulated fatigue that became more noticeable in the final miles. Although the final miles were supposed to feel easy, my legs felt heavier and their joints more strained. If I felt like a spring for the first seven miles, I felt like a dump truck full of bricks on the final 5. To me, this is the point of these long runs: to adapt the legs to these distances. The final miles hurt, at least for me. I was a swimmer and before last year, I had never completed a run of more than 5 miles. With each of these long runs I’m literally entering uncharted territory.

The good news is that with each long run, the fatigue hits me at a higher mileage. The first long run introduced me to “leg shutdown” around mile 10. Then 12, then 14, and now 16. So it seems that with each successful long run, I’m afforded an additional two miles before extreme fatigue settles in and slows my pace to a halt. With only a month left, the final two miles of the marathon (26.2 miles) will probably hurt no matter what I do.

The other purpose of these long runs is figuring out how to fuel. I’m a hair shy of 6’5”, which means that I inevitably need more fuel than most people. I’m pretty sure the average marathon runner is a good deal shorter than me. My plan on that last long run was to attempt to digest five gels, as well as about a liter of water. I find that whenever I take more than three gels on a run, the gel’s substance seems to stick a little in the back of my throat, which forces me to cough. On this run I was coughing every minute for the final 9 miles of the run. That’s pretty damn annoying and a sign that I might need a different brand of gels.

The morning after that long run, I had an easy 10-mile jog with my running group. I held pace with little strain, which is also a good sign; it means I rebounded pretty well. I then took Monday off and on Tuesday had a high-intensity session. The main part of that “high intensity” workout involved two 10-minute threshold runs, a recovery, and five 2-minute fast runs. I hit my highest speeds yet. As in, the highest speeds I’ve ever hit in my life. Pretty cool for a dude turning 38 this year. Again, it means I’m not too broken down from endurance running six days per week. I’m in a good position for being a month away from the marathon.

Marathon training has to be a personal journey. The motivation has to be internal because truly I’ve found that people around me generally don’t really give a damn about it. Even if they do, they probably don’t understand the magnitude of what it requires. Most don’t know how many miles a marathon actually is. Some people do care I guess, but really, you have to prepare for a marathon because you love running or it won’t be sustainable.

“Oh, you’re running a marathon? Well don’t get hurt.”

“Why do you want to run that many miles?”

“I can hit that mileage in my car.”

These are the sorts of responses I often get. I could lash back, which the athlete in me often tells me to do. “Don’t get hurt walking up the stairs, wuss.” “I want to run that many miles because I know you can’t.” “Have fun sitting in your car for a lifetime then; I’m sure that’ll keep you healthy.” However to do so would be petty and pointless.

I look to role models like Tom Brady and how he handles his critics. Brady handles every criticism with grace. He shirks off their condescending remarks with a smile and continues doing what he enjoys, critics be damned. He responds with class and consideration. It’s a brilliant way of interacting with opponents. Brady knows that the best way to lash back at an opponent is to show that you aren’t phased by that person. Happiness is the ultimate weapon, and that’s one of the many reasons why Brady always seems to win. Brady’s enemies just can’t bring him down to their level.

One more month and I’ll be scratching “ran a marathon” off the bucket list…

The Long Run

Saturday was my longest run to date: 17.75 miles (28 km), with about 30 minutes of it at my goal marathon pace.

The mind, like the body, can wander to distant places during a run of this duration. I found my own thoughts bouncing between old memories and an acute attention to the present moment.

I ran along the Riverfront Trail and noticed that although the trees are still barren—they stand like an endless army of crooked dead things lining the Mississippi River—there are some animals returning. This is a precursor to spring. I saw some American robins hopping around in the grass, for example. I haven’t seen those little birds in that area for several months, though I’m sure they’re elsewhere in the city.

The second half of this run was against a harsh wind that blew northward. I ran directly south for almost 9 miles to return home. In times like this I suspect it’s less fun to be tall.

I felt fresh at the end and finished my run with plenty of energy remaining in my tank. I try to finish most runs feeling this way. If you deplete your system too severely, you may sacrifice too many future workouts for an exercise to be worthwhile. At times that may be okay: you have to cross your threshold to know your own boundaries. I’ve been beyond those boundaries enough times to have a good balance now. Still, I do find myself willing to cross it on occasion. It can be a nice reminder that I’m alive.

One thing that keeps me running is my appreciation for the running community. Events can barely feel like a competition between people because most runners tend to support one another. I’ve often seen runners who’ve finished ahead of me remain at the finish line, cheering for me and the others as I complete my own journey.

I really enjoy being a part of this sort of culture, especially as someone who primarily runs and bikes for the sake of longevity. It is a competition that elevates everyone and is a far cry from the stereotypical “cutthroat” American work culture competition, in which every victory must come at the expense of another (running is, at its heart, a sort of spirited rebellion against the adult status quo).

This mutual respect and desire to see everyone succeed also makes participation in running events more sustainable, which is exactly what I’m looking for: something to keep my adventures active for decades. Who wants to finish an event feeling both crushed and beaten? Running a distance event is itself a significant victory. Most of your coworkers probably couldn’t dream of walking as far as you just ran. As far as I’m concerned, you are a champion.

While peers hobble around with first-world conveniences and wax nostalgia for “youthful” days in which they moved with vitality, endurance runners seek the most treacherous mountain yet.

I suspect many runners are on similar journeys to me. I see mutual fighters against mortality, people seeking connection with an ancient part of human DNA. A long run therefore stretches to the extremes of past and future. It might be a search for answers to questions that can’t be articulated, and that’s okay: the odds of finding the answer were impossible anyways.