Wrote this, well, almost a couple years ago by now. What I have learned is, helps to be famous if you are trying to sell books. – JDW
My publisher, as part of our marketing plans, wanted to know about the “competition” for my book. When Running Was Young and So Were We. My initial response was, there is none. What else am I going to say?
***
But, on second thought, I decided some exploration might be useful.
So, I ended up finding, purchasing, and reading several books about running.
I started with Alberto Salazar’s 14 Minutes: A Running Legend’s Life and Death and Life.
Now, I have run with Alberto, albeit not for long. I have ridden in a van and a private plane with Alberto. I have talked to Alberto, I have attended parties with Alberto.
I have eaten at his erstwhile restaurant. I have looked out my window at a Waikiki hotel and watched him play ball with one of his young sons.
I know him a little, I respect him a great deal.
Stunning how much more I now know about the man. How much more my respect has grown.
The book is dense with wisdom for men, for athletes, for runners. Many others, too.
So, if I cull an excerpt, it’s merely a modest nugget from a gold mine.
Some serious George Plimpton- style participatory journalism
“I loved to run, pure and simple. When you’re hitting it right, to run feels like an effortless float. On the other hand, it’s so exhilarating to look back after a race at the point you thought you were finished, dead in the water, and know that you pushed beyond that point. You can live easier with yourself, remembering moments like that. It’s not the same as managing a sharp, clearly defined jag of pain. The pain of distance running is more like a comprehensive, bodywide exhaustion. Your will drains out of you; every fiber in your being tells you to stop. Your thoughts go muddy. The world looks foggy. You are just about ready to give up, to stop struggling and sink beneath the water.
And maybe you do give up, for a fraction of a moment, for just long enough to taste the bliss and terror of surrender. But then you take another step. You discover that the point of exhaustion and surrender that you were sure you’d reached in fact lies up the road another mile. You realize it’s okay to feel awful; feeling awful becomes your new normal. You can take feeling awful in your hands and shape it to your will. If you’re very lucky, during a few golden moments over the course of a career, you can seize control over your suffering to the extent that you’re playing with it. This is the most wonderful – and dangerous – feeling in the world.” – Alberto Salazar, 14 Minutes.
***
Next up was Duel In The Sun: Alberto Salazar, Dick Beardsley and America’s Greatest Marathon by John Brant. Mr. Brant is the co-author of Alberto’s book; I am guessing not coincidentally. Because Duel In The Sun is simply a great piece of work. As I was finishing the book, I was actually asking myself, is this one of your all-time favorite books? Ever?
And I am thinking maybe the answer is…yes. Maybe because I have written myself about both Dick and Alberto, maybe because I have run the Boston Marathon, maybe because I have pushed myself to the limits, maybe because I was reading the book when the bombs blew up. Whatever the reason…
“Beardsley came off Heartbreak Hill with Salazar breathing down his neck. The crowds pressed so close that there was barely a path to run through. They were screaming so loud that he couldn’t hear himself think. He couldn’t feel his legs. They seemed to belong to someone else.
In the course of all marathons and in all the thousands of miles he’d covered in other races and workouts around the world – from a gravel road along the St. Croix River on the Minnesota-Wisconsin border to the London Bridge across the Thames – Dick thought he’d seen, heard, touched, and felt everything possible. He’d been chased by dogs. The skin between his thighs had chafed until he bled. His muscles had cramped into iron. Opponents had knocked him down, and he had knocked down opponents. He’d been snowed on, rained on, hailed on, scorched and frozen, and raked by tempest winds. He had taken wrong turns. He had run superbly, wretchedly, and indifferently, but he had never, ever felt phantomlike pillars of air where his legs ought to be.”
This couldn’t be good…. – John Brant, Duel In The Sun.
Turns out racing in the heat against Alberto was the least of Dick Beardsley’s battles.
***
I haven’t quite finished Marathon Man: My 26.2 Mile Journey From Unknown Grad Student To The Top Of The Running World by Bill Rodgers and Matthew Shepatin. I pretty much know how the story ends anyway and, besides, Boston Billy runs on.
“Here’s what you have to understand: For runners, progress is the root of pleasure. While progress in life can be hard to see, sometimes impossible, all I had to do was open my ten-cent running diary and peer inside. My physical evolution was clearly laid out before my eyes – where I was when I started, where I was now. It was a way of grabbing the reins of life: I ran five miles yesterday, I ran seven miles today, and next week I will run ten miles. The more work I put in, the stronger I became. I felt good. I felt fit. Now I was really tapping into my human potential. No substance on the planet can rival a rush like that.” – Bill Rodgers, Marathon Man.
***
It dawns on me, I am reading differently these days. I am reading like an old man who can no longer run fast. I am understanding the running in my life is, in fact, a metaphor for my life. And the point of exhaustion I thought I might have reached lies up the road another mile.
By the way, Amazon is selling these books at a discount. You can order When Running Was Young And So Were We in plenty of time for Christmas. Actually, giving is what these books have in common. Giving a damn. Giving it your best. Giving your all.