Leaving a lasting Legacy...and Ultrarunning

On the evening of 19 February--channel surfing versus the Sochi Olympics--I watched a PBS show about Easter Island in the South Pacific.  You've all seen the images of the carved heads:

 

[image credit PBS]

Well, we as Ultrarunners have the very same motivation: to leave something of ourselves behind for our descendants.  Whether it's a 100 miler buckle or the tales of races raced, we all want to achieve some form of immortality.  As I get older I think the answer is not in physical objects--Easter Island monoliths or Umstead buckles--but rather in the stories, in the lore of our existence.

For example, I can see my grandchildren talking about how Pappy ran 100 mile races (maybe the tale would be accompanied by a belt buckle, maybe not), much like the descendants of the Easter Island heads would talk about their ancestors).  I tell them tales of the run, the details about eating, drinking, repetitive loops, running and spilling your guts to strangers on the trail, of sunrises and sunsets, of headlamps, of low spots and high points, of all the collected experience that is trail running.

Today, real world, as I talk to these grandbabies, I focus on the magic of the race, how the physical challenge--well trained for--offers an opportunity unique in modern life, to go to the edge and see what you are made of physically and mentally.  How the race tests you, how the struggle lifts you, how the challenge elevates you a level that everyday people never see in everyday life.

Ultrarunning is a means of compressing a lifetime into 30 hours: a dawn, a day, a night, and another dawn.  A block of time that transcends time, that compresses and boils down the human experience into a discrete event.

An event that will change you forever, that will offer you insights into the real stuff of which you are made.

And coming through that constructed event will alter your mind-set, will forever change the way in which you regard the world.  For those miles of foot placed after foot, of roots and rocks and water. of struggles and effortless cruising, will prove to you that you are indeed alive.

And that you are a hero, in some small way, but a hero nonetheless.

Clapping...and Ultrarunning

For some odd reason I was just thinking about the very first race I ever ran--it was a road 10K in Frederick, MD, held in conjunction with a half and full marathon.  This would have been in 1980 or so.

When I crossed the finish line there were a ton of spectators who clapped and cheered enthusiastically.  For. Me.

Never having run a race, I was dumbfounded and felt overcome with emotion.  I was hooked.

Fast forward more than a quarter century and I still get a thrill from the cheers of the finish line crowd at an Ultra.  I tend to think that more than a road race crowd, attendees at an Ultra race are a tad more knowledgeable about what it takes to do an Ultra...thus their applause means more.

Ironically, in today's REFDESK--my homepage--is an article about applause as a "social contagion" that can be started and stopped by the actions of just a couple audience members. 

The quality of a performance does not drive the amount of applause an audience gives, a study suggests.

Instead scientists have found that clapping is contagious, and the length of an ovation is influenced by how other members of the crowd behave.

They say it takes a few people to start clapping for applause to spread through a group, and then just one or two individuals to stop for it to die out.

 

 

It's a good read, here. By the way, I've posted about "Why the Race".  Check it out, here.

 

 

WWII...and Ultrarunning

(Image credit here) 



The Writer's Almanac for 5 Oct was sobering.  From the poem "Graduates of Western Military Academy" by George Bilgere, here's a excerpt.  Sure, it's poetry, and as I always say, most people can't hit that DELETE key fast enough.  But please give this one a try and click thru the Writer's Almanac link above:

One day, as this friend of my father, Paul
was flying over Asia,
he vaporized a major Japanese city.

....

But somehow, all my father got to do later on
was run his own car dealership. A big one,
but still. While Paul
got to blow up Japan. My father
ushered in the latest models.
Paul ushered in the Atomic Age.
It seems unfair, but there you are.

My father was a WWII vet, but missed out on combat, a fact he always seemed to regret.  He had 2 brothers who did see combat; one turned out normal.  But the eldest brother, a paratrooper on D-Day, was dropped behind enemy lines in Normandy to cause havoc prior to and during the invasion.  All brothers survived, but the eldest never was the same mentally afterwards.

In contrast to all that, my life has been remarkably safe.  Now--I am not suggesting that Ultrarunning and WWII are equivalent.  No way.  But as I've posted before on why we run, there are parallels in that both involve intense experiences;  the key obvious difference being that Ultrarunning is voluntary and uplifting, while war is involuntary and destructive. 

Let me repro a couple of my previous words here since that's where my mind again went to after reading the poem above. 

This post is simply a plug for using the vehicle of a race to go to a place deep within yourself, a place on the edge where the vast mass of humanity never goes, and sadly, never even suspects is there. And so the measure of success in a race is not necessarily the time showing on the clock, or the distance run, the position placed, the medals, the ribbons, the certificates, or the camaraderie, fine as all those things may be.

No, the true measure of success in a race is whether you did your best, and in giving your best, did you somehow approach that edge? Did you flirt with that shadowy realm of total intensity, where vicariousness was abandoned for immersion? Did you somehow sense that survival is not merely an abstract concept rendered quaintly obsolete by the veneer of civilization?

That is why I run.  And my hat remains off for my father and uncles and father-in-law and grandfather...in short, to all the vets, living and dead, who did their duty.
 
 

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Why the Race?

Consider this—early man lived by his wits, skills, and to a large measure, luck.  Life spans were measured in years, not decades.  Survival was a moment to moment reality, certainly not something taken for granted.  Early man was on the edge virtually all the time.

But take modern man—virtually never on the edge, almost never called on to perform at 100% intensity.  In a sense, we've grown soft, but this is an observation, not necessarily an indictment. As an example, just think about your job.  If you're like me, I frequently work hard but almost never with absolute, total intensity and concentration. We now seem to get our living and our intensity largely vicariously.

Here's an important question: when was the last time you were totally concentrated, absorbed, focused, going to the limit?  Unless you are, say, a performing actor or musician, you probably do not absolutely reach that state.  And this question is more than merely rhetorical. The answer to this question can define a person, can be one of those "either/or" issues that separate humankind into two camps: those who know the perils and pleasures of what it's like at the edge, and those who don't.

Running—racing—is my way (and I've recognized it's perhaps my only way) to go to the edge and beyond, to perform something with total abandon, intensity, and concentration.  The last time in my life that I totally abandoned myself to anything was at the Umstead 100 Mile Endurance Race this spring, in which I realized that at the halfway point, I had run 10:05 for 50 miles, and a sub-24 was possible.  So over the next 50 miles, over the next 12+ hours, I strove to maintain my pace and not slack off. 

My world shrank to encompass only me, the trail, and that next runner ahead of me. The race became total concentration, my whole life's drama being played out on that brief stretch of trail. The start of the last 12.5 mile loop came and I continued to press, more than I needed, almost gliding now as my concentration and effort became pure distillation of that primal urge for survival, for I had entered that strange world where pleasure and pain are the same. I found that the masochist is not a pervert, he is merely an extension of ourselves. In the process of the race I discovered a little bit more of who I am.

I both dread and love that feeling; I approach the race with fear and avoidance, attraction and longing. Race day brings alternate feelings of both dread and excitement. Am I capable of holding this pace that I desire? In a more esoteric sense, am I worthy enough to put myself on the line both mentally and physically?

So why even go to this mystical edge?  I'm not a psychiatrist but I feel that it's important for one's mental health to experience the full range of one's psyche. And why the race? Simply put, most of us won't push enough in training to get to the limit; the race is the most convenient means to get to that level of intensity and thereby open up your mind.

This post is simply a plug for using the vehicle of a race to go to a place deep within yourself, a place on the edge where the vast mass of humanity never goes, and sadly, never even suspects is there. And so the measure of success in a race is not necessarily the time showing on the clock, or the distance run, the position placed, the medals, the ribbons, the certificates, or the camaraderie, fine as all those things may be.

No, the true measure of success in a race is whether you did your best, and in giving your best, did you somehow approach that edge?  Did you flirt with that shadowy realm of total intensity, where vicariousness was abandoned for immersion?  Did you somehow sense that survival is not merely an abstract concept rendered quaintly obsolete by the veneer of civilization?

If you get close enough to sense that edge, then you have in fact succeeded.