There are as many reasons for running as there are days in the year, years in my life. But mostly I run because I am an animal and a child, an artist and a saint. So, too, are you. Find your own play, your own self-renewing compulsion, and you will become the person you are meant to be.
– George Sheehan, M.D.
Remember – It’s Only Pain….
The old runner could tell you the exact spot where the idea came into full blossom.
A narrow roadway, just crossing between the sixth hole and the seventh tee. Headed due west.
Away from the morning sun. No traffic.
Felt like a door opening, opening wide. Imagine you’ve died and now you are going up into heaven.
There was a bright light.
A Big Bright Light, pulling him skyward.
And he didn’t even have to die to see it.
Right then the old runner realized he could replicate the feeling of running.
Even if his body could no longer reproduce the actual motion.
The first day, he just imagined he didn’t hurt. Felt lighter.
He imagined he was going faster.
The breeze picked up or so it seemed.
The old runner could see himself running along the lanes, waving at the cranes and ibis and tortoises, a wide smile spread across his face.
He fantasized about catching up to a golf cart, surprising senior citizens racing to the pool for aquarobics.
Or not.
The second day. If you are going to practice virtual running, why stay home? Been running these same roads for ten years now. Once you’ve seen a blind man pitching horseshoes, there’s not much else to watch out for.
Go somewhere new in your head.
Hell, why not re-visit some favorite runs?
Why not, indeed.
The old man surprised himself.
First image: he suddenly found himself trailing the lead pack at a small college cross-country race at leafy Bush Park in Salem, Oregon. Chuck Bowles let him sneak in, because the coach thought he might be able to keep up.
He could almost keep up, chasing, chasing, the rubber band never breaking, only until the memory faded away.
Before he realized, he was curving down off the mountain, the back half of an observatory run west of Flagstaff, Arizona. Motoring at high altitude, beard in the wind. 1974.
Man oh man oh man.
The old runner noticed – so far – he had only virtually run his fastest days.
Thinking maybe tomorrow he’d try to stay with the lead pack.
You have to wonder at times what you’re doing out there.
Over the years, I’ve given myself a thousand reasons to keep running,
but it always comes back to where it started.
It comes down to self-satisfaction and a sense of achievement.
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