The Place For Community

Running of the type the unconquerable runner engages in does not take place in a vacuum but within an identifiable community. From a first glance, running may appear to be one of the most individualistic participatory sports out there. But if we reflect for a moment we soon realize that no race takes place without a community of other runners with whom we can test and measure our performance. Furthermore, beyond this minimalist appraisal there are actually a number of ways in which a running community can and does make the unconquerable runner an ideal more attainable.

One of the more subtle ways a running community sustains a runner is in motivation.  Of course if one asks any runner why he runs there are a number of answers he may give but the drive of an upcoming race or commitment to a daily running partner cannot be ignored.  My involvement with running clubs in the past has gotten me out of bed at five on Saturday mornings largely because I committed to be there with my friends and running peers. The expectations of members in a shared community can be powerful motivation as well as a source of great support during difficult times in one's life as a runner.

A running community also provides some of the most meaningful celebratory congratulations a runner can receive because other runners know the challenges and difficulties before the accomplishment. Whether a 5k or a marathon, every runner knows that just competing and finishing takes hours of training and sweat. This shared recognition seems to be the fact behind the most common words between runners on a race course: "good job"!  I recently reached a long sought after goal of running a marathon under three hours. My running friends emailed me or called to express their heartfelt congratulations on the milestone accomplishment. When I shared the news with a brother (a non-runner) he simply asked, "Is that fast?" 

Another of the many benefits of involvement in a running club has been the pooling of training and injury experience.  When our running club gets together each week, we have the opportunity to talk and discuss our successes and challenges.  Unfortunately, overuse injuries in their many varieties often come up.  Fortunately, our group is large enough and diverse enough that someone either has had firsthand experience with the problem or knows of some simple strategies that can help alleviate or eliminate the issue.  

Lastly, being a runner is an identity and often when one is with other runners there is an immediate sense of solidarity and belonging. I have never felt more at home and with my own people than standing in a crowd of runners at the start of race. We have all put in miles on pavement through all sorts of weather conditions. We are runners! More than that, we are runners striving to realize the ideal of being unconquerable runners. Continually striving for excellence and our very best, we come closer to being unconquerable because we are all members of a shared community.

Of Human Bondage: The Burden of Contingency

A simple truth of being human is that we all share a condition of bondage.  This bondage is not to some evil empire or totalitarian dictator but the circumstance of our existence: contingency. We depend on the particular alignment of numerous accidents in order to sustain our lives and civilization.  Our daily sustenance requires external resources such as food and water--not to mention air-- just to stay alive.  Even our mental well being necessitates positive interaction with other human beings.

Given the insurmountable nature of this state of being, the challenge lies in our engagement with these contingencies. We have a choice: either we can consciously struggle against these limitations or passively play the role of a victim.  The victim feels the buffets of these barriers without expectation or understanding.  The unconquerable runner on the other hand knows, explores, and engages every boundary in order to understand and intelligibly interact with such barriers.  It is by coming up against such limits that he overcomes and pushes them back. Faster times over greater distances are achieved through attending to physical conditioning, diet, and mental stamina.

The key to successfully accomplishing such feats lies in careful cultivation and patient persistence. A good diet only has positive effects on a marathoner's performance after weeks and even months of eating appropriate combinations of proteins and carbohydrates. Endurance follows weeks and weeks of consistent running.  Avoidance of injury relies heavily on routine stretching and strength condition.  Time spent running on the road and track provides a runner with the mental stamina and confidence necessary to face the race. Improvement is seen only after a runner puts in much time and careful attention to such details over extended periods of time.

Here, once again, the utility of running as a life metaphor comes clear in how the unconquerable runner engages the limitations.  Dependence on daily nutrition becomes an asset by selecting the types of foods that maximize running performance.  By completing daily distance runs the runner activates the body's ability to increase its capacity to metabolize oxygen and glycogen efficiently.  In this way, barriers come to provide a means for overcoming and pushing beyond them. In an ironic turn, we as humans possess the surprising quality of surpassing our contingencies by wisely and carefully engaging them.  Running from them, seeking to find escape from these restraints actually leads to debilitation and weakness. 

Thus the unconquerable runner embraces and engages his limits and, by so doing, rises above the status of victimhood. 

Post Race: A Time for Reflection and Second Guessing

A week has now passed since the Las Vegas marathon.  I have spent this week recovering and reflecting on the race and my experience there.  This was the first marathon in which I accomplished all three of the goals I set before me: I finished, qualified for the Boston Marathon, and ran it in 2:59:09.  I knew in the first two miles that I would be able to finish under three hours.  I felt so good and strong for the first 24 miles.  It was exhilarating!  The last two miles were a different story.  I suffered a painful exhaustion that hurt throughout my entire body. Fortunately, I did not slow down more than a minute per mile during that phase. 

Post race reflection is a critical part of a runner's life and necessary if he hopes to improve upon his performance in later races.  As a marathon is an exceptional event that punctuates the staid quality of day to day living, it illuminates and reveals much.  The revelatory material, however, cannot be obtained except through conscious reflection and musing.

As with any great accomplishment, I have felt many congratulations from friends and even myself.  This fruit should be savored and enjoyed for all that it is but I find it can be a dangerous trap too.  Indulgence in too many feelings of a self-congratulatory nature leaves out the less pleasant but necessary questions of a more critical kind.  Did I put everything out on the course?  When I hit the wall, did I give in to the desire to slow, stop, or do anything less than my all?  What aspects of my performance could be improved by modifying my training? How will my experience in this last race inform my preparations for the next one?

I think that post race feelings have some similarities to survivor's guilt. Just as the survivor questions whether he truly did everything he could have done to save those who did not make it out of whatever disaster they shared, I find that I must find specific bits of the evidence that I did indeed do my best. In this race I simply have to remember the last quarter of a mile when I was starting to make audible sounds as I rasped for air. All I wanted to do was stop.  My body ached all over.  Instead I picked up speed and actually regained my earlier pace. This incredible exertion took its toll as I was as emotionally taxed as I was physically.  In an uncontrollable moment, my emotions took over and I began to sob between breaths.  The tears coursed down my cheeks as I found the finish line in sight.  I finished having given my all.

With respect to my training, I know that I need to increase my overall mileage from week to week. My speed was fine but my endurance needs some work if I am to avoid such levels of exhaustion (though I have never successfully avoided such a feelings in a marathon). The Las Vegas marathon was also relatively flat, the Boston marathon is not. I must prepare for my next marathon by including hill work (repeated runs up steep hills). I have put together my new training plan and have included such hill climbs.

I am always impressed by the lack of energy I feel in this recovery period but such feelings give me the opportunity to slow down and assess where I have been and now where I am going. Such a valuable gift is made possible by the total exertion of the unconquerable runner. 

Training and Preparation

"I don't train. I just run my 3 to 15 miles a day." 

-Jack Foster

Most accomplishments in life require training and preparation.  Those feats that appear in headlines or history books come about as a result of much unseen effort.  Like an iceberg, the more substantial part of the story often remains unseen.  Running exemplifies this characteristic of life with unusual accuracy.

The longer the distance, the greater the need for conditioning.  Even shorter runs bring with them an exponential increase in risk of injury if the runner's mind and body have not been prepared properly.  A baseline of fitness must be built incrementally, one run at a time.

As I reflect on my upcoming marathon, I remind myself of each component of my training.  I have built a baseline of endurance through gradually running greater distances from week to week.  Saturday long runs were critical in cultivating the mental and physical stamina for a marathon.  At their longest, twenty miles and further, my joints and muscle systems developed in ways that will withstand the prolonged use and abuse of the race.

My preparations have also included weekly quality workouts.  The cardiovascular system requires more than simple endurance but also strength and efficiency.  By running at a tempo pace for twenty minutes or more at a time, my muscles developed more effective ways to utilize glycogen and anaerobic sources of energy as well as raw strength.  Through interval training (where I ran repeated short distances of 800 meters to a mile with brief recovery periods between bursts) I have augmented my cardiovascular system's capacity to get oxygen to exhausted muscle cells. 

I have also been mindful that in the end it is in the recovery from these runs that true conditioning takes place.  Only by eating a good diet and allowing plenty of time for the body to rebuild from the rigors of training have I been able to cultivate a level of fitness that will enable me to improve upon my last race performance.

In the final two to three weeks before the race, I have enjoyed the fruits of the training by tapering the number of miles I run.  In the taper, I run less and take time to build up stores for the actual race.  The challenge of the taper lies in an increased desire to run: I find myself craving the distance and the speed.  As I get closer and closer to the starting line I begin to feel like a race horse at the gate, yearning to put it all on the track.  

Because of these unseen and quiet preparations, come Sunday morning, I will be at the starting line on the Las Vegas Strip, up to the challenge of the race.  In light of the many training runs, the race will be a reward, a gift to myself, and a celebration of the journey to compete.  The culmination of numerous runs and countless hours, this contest will reveal a bit of the unconquerable runner within me.