Pursuit

We all have weaknesses.

Some are more flagrant than others. As of late, I find myself questioning my strengths; What I perceived to be formidable tenets of my constitution are becoming eroded by the rising tides of law and physical training.

The Greeks who spoke so long ago of (strong mind , strong body) knew all too well the inherent strengths of the human condition. They knew the propensities and the fears, the objective and the subjective, and the axioms that govern human behavior. I would only wish to have a fraction of this understanding.

When I find myself in contexts such as the present, I begin to withdraw. I distance myself from social distractions, and work in pattern that is arguably unhealthy. My greatest weakness is the inability to cease something I have started. I work harder when I prohibit superfluous distraction.

Bayley had a profound point when he accurately asserted “Absence makes the heart grow fonder.” The deprivation of pleasure is the medium towards one’s paramount condition.

The danger in endurance sport is precisely this; continually denying one of the pleasures the laymen take as necessity. The endurance athlete simply closes their eyes. They deny themselves the comforts of the familiar, for the excitement and danger that comes with even the most peaceful progress.

Einstein has been said to be a cruel father. Neglecting, dismissive, and crass. I find it hard to conceive that these fallacies ever existed in the man outside his work. As a young man who values his family above all else, I can assure anyone that I would swiftly cease and desist all personal ambition should my family demand it.

I abhor the idea of self-aggrandizement. I find it fundamentally unethical. The armor of dignity often clads the weakest constitutions. It is for this reason that I find myself often concealed in a veil of secrecy. I work hard and I disclose it only to those whom I must demonstrably certify it before.

I find great comfort in this. Similarly, I find an inherent truth in distance running. I abstain from the sports which require a six-man support system. Jefferson once said that “Games played with the ball and others of that nature, are too violent for the body and stamp no character on the mind.” Being alone in the dark road in the cold rain is when every evolutionary instinct within oneself advises against the heart’s intent. It is only here where I learn the most and yearn the least.

Men weren’t made to disobey their biology. They weren’t given the rights they have from the state, but from the hand of God. Every living thing has an estimate of their capacity. But it is only that.

I’ve met with people who have conquered obstacles and impediments greater than I have ever dreamed. And they have won.

Working tirelessly and grinding ones’ nerves to a degree of discomfort is a horrific proposition. But at the end of that road often lies the apex of man’s achievements.

When man works himself to the level of imminent collapse; When he intoxicates himself with his own blood, sweat and tears – And then, after all this, only when the mind can seek no pleasure by the present course - This is when the walls

What I'm about to assert is something that despite past wishes, is finally coming true.

I've been working very hard the last few weeks to become a stronger runner. And it has worked.

I have waited over a year to regain this level of fitness, and it finally is beginning to manifest itself in the roads ahead.

Suffering on the hills.

Hammering the treadmill.

Core workouts five times per week.

All of this was done after I worked to illuminate the most shadowed corners of my training. The areas where dust accumulates and rust composes.

And then tonight I found what I had in me. I found great speed and ability and strength after a grand day with even grander acquaintances in Boston College's systematic destruction of Miami. Go you Boston Eagles.

Following a day of the quintessence of New England, came great reward in the lonely night air.




7 miles at tempo pace, feeling as if I was floating along what would become a new reality. A new, uncanny ability to seemingly ascend into the heavens.

That's all I know at this point. But I sure am happy.

I’m not as eccentric as I once was.

I’ve learned to relax some, control less, and live more.

But there are certain stimulants that elicit grand memories of a time long healed, but still raw.

Environments.
Weather.
Music.

Temporary silence.

They all fire the synapses in my brain which create the flashbulb memories of an insane history.

About two years ago this time, I would be home on holiday. I would run on average 7-9 miles in the freezing, salt encrusted streets of a suburban New England town at 7:00AM. For no other reason than I could. My speed was non-existent; My monotony established; My routine precisely that.

I would then return home, bathe, coffee and a small breakfast. Then it was onto the bike on the trainer. I remember watching the tragedy in West Virginia of those coal miners who perished on CNN Morning Addition from my trainer.



Then the day seemed to end. Training was over. School was in recess. And I was alone.

So I began to read, work in advance of my senior thesis due dates, and largely bury myself amidst coffee and books. Seemed like a grand thing.

Triathlon is a lethal creature if it is not tamed. For it can be loved as easily as it can be abused. After fulfilling Dr. Cooper’s minimum daily requirements of 30 minutes of daily aerobic exercise, one may feel validated. Not so in multi-sport. The bane of our very existence is the same thing that makes us better: The ability to endure pain and fatigue and distractions, while maintaining a quasi-life. To endure is to know achievement.

However after so many miles, so many beats per minute, so many strokes per cubic centimeter, the wheels will come off. And when they do, it is the equivalent of an irresistible force meeting an immovable object. Hell hath no fury like an injured runner during the utopian season of cross-country.

As I begin my off-season now, I come off a largely successful season: A sub 4 hour marathon, a sub 3 hour Olympic distance triathlon, and placing second in my age group in an 8k road race. I feel validated.

My memories and passions are pure. Running in the snow and then going to Starbucks to bury myself in a presidential history book. Cycling on the trainer until I feel as if the room has become 105 degrees, only to run outside to my deck to completely cool off, and then collapsing on the carpet for 2 hours. Notwithstanding these curious habits, I find great comfort therein.

Yesterday I ran a 10-mile Turkey Day course, which I felt fantastic pursuing. Then this morning I hammered the largest hills I can find, including one of which I have for 4 years longed to test myself on.

I was quite sore shortly thereafter, as in these short moments of man versus 9.8 meters per second of downward force, I meet the extent of my physiology. I fight my genes. I fight my pain. And I fight the earth.

The hill brings man down to his innermost strength. Its what children stop in the middle of a game of tag when their prey runs up a hill in the playground. They realize the struggle ahead, and they falter.

It therefore makes perfect sense for the non-runner to see a lonely figure in the distant grass going up and down a steep knoll, to just shake his head in disbelief

The hill is one of the few periods in a weekly training regimen that guarantees the most opposite of emotions. It’s a sweet nexus of adversity and triumph. It elicits only the deepest and most guarded instincts of man. For it is in the hill that a man knows what he truly is. It sheds away the façade from even the most conditioned of athletes.

A man can have a heart the size of a boulder. He may have the legs of hydraulic compressor. But every physiology is challenged on an incline. Cars change gears, cyclists shift if its not too late, and the runner’s legs pool with litres of lactic acid. Every runner suffers on a hill. But so does anyone who attempts this noble feat. There is an absolute truth in escalating one’s heart rate while moving above, and admirably, beyond a 180 degree plane of earth:


Within incline lies equality.

I’m not as eccentric as I once was.

I’ve learned to relax some, control less, and live more.

But there are certain stimulants that elicit grand memories of a time long healed, but still raw.

Environments.
Weather.
Music.

Temporary silence.

They all fire the synapses in my brain which create the flashbulb memories of an insane history.

About two years ago this time, I would be home on holiday. I would run on average 7-9 miles in the freezing, salt encrusted streets of a suburban New England town at 7:00AM. For no other reason than I could. My speed was non-existent; My monotony established; My routine precisely that.

I would then return home, bathe, coffee and a small breakfast. Then it was onto the bike on the trainer. I remember watching the tragedy in West Virginia of those coal miners who perished on CNN Morning Addition from my trainer.

Then the day seemed to end. Training was over. School was in recess. And I was alone.

So I began to read, work in advance of my senior thesis due dates, and largely bury myself amidst coffee and books. Seemed like a grand thing.

Triathlon is a lethal creature if it is not tamed. For it can be loved as easily as it can be abused. After fulfilling Dr. Cooper’s minimum daily requirements of 30 minutes of daily aerobic exercise, one may feel validated. Not so in multi-sport. The bane of our very existence is the same thing that makes us better: The ability to endure pain and fatigue and distractions, while maintaining a quasi-life. To endure is to know achievement.

However after so many miles, so many beats per minute, so many strokes per cubic centimeter, the wheels will come off. And when they do, it is the equivalent of an irresistible force meeting an immovable object. Hell hath no fury like an injured runner during the utopian season of cross-country.

As I begin my off-season now, I come off a largely successful season: A sub 4 hour marathon, a sub 3 hour Olympic distance triathlon, and placing second in my age group in an 8k road race. I feel validated.

My memories and passions are pure. Running in the snow and then going to Starbucks to bury myself in a presidential history book. Cycling on the trainer until I feel as if the room has become 105 degrees, only to run outside to my deck to completely cool off, and then collapsing on the carpet for 2 hours. Notwithstanding these curious habits, I find great comfort therein.

Yesterday I ran a 10-mile Turkey Day course, which I felt fantastic pursuing. Then this morning I hammered the largest hills I can find, including one of which I have for 4 years longed to test myself on.

I was quite sore shortly thereafter, as in these short moments of man versus 9.8 meters per second of downward force, I meet the extent of my physiology. I fight my genes. I fight my pain. And I fight the earth.

The hill brings man down to his innermost strength. Its what children stop in the middle of a game of tag when their prey runs up a hill in the playground. They realize the struggle ahead, and they falter.

It therefore makes perfect sense for the non-runner to see a lonely figure in the distant grass going up and down a steep knoll, to just shake his head in disbelief

The hill is one of the few periods in a weekly training regimen that guarantees the most opposite of emotions. It’s a sweet nexus of adversity and triumph. It elicits only the deepest and most guarded instincts of man. For it is in the hill that a man knows what he truly is. It sheds away the façade from even the most conditioned of athletes.

A man can have a heart the size of a boulder. He may have the legs of hydraulic compressor. But every physiology is challenged on an incline. Cars change gears, cyclists shift if its not too late, and the runner’s legs pool with litres of lactic acid. Every runner suffers on a hill. But so does anyone who attempts this noble feat. There is an absolute truth in escalating one’s heart rate while moving above, and admirably, beyond a 180 degree plane of earth:


Within incline likes equality.

So now that I’ve finished that leviathan of a criminal law assignment, I may address the peril and plunder that was my run this evening.

Prior the beginning, I felt tired, sore, and just beat. But my soul cried run.

So as I drove home in the cold midst, which would make anyone else speed to the nearest Starbucks for a Pumpkin Spice Latte, I considered outside versus inside running. I succumbed to the former.

Oh Lord, help me understand the follies in my choice.

So I hopped on the treadmill, hoping for the best, (albeit, I wish I was running in the mist outside) and was met with bitter reality.

Everything hurt. And now my left ITB is critically sore around my knee, and I lust for inactivity. I have scheduled a 10 miler tomorrow morning before the feast. Not too sure if that’s going to happen.

I should have just run in the mist, amidst the tears and rain.

So I’m going to take a break for a bit of time from all this work.

At this instant in the semester, I have found great stress and burden. My roommates find a similar struggle in their endeavors.

Finals loom. But before the exam itself, arrives a tsunami of project development and deadline drudgery.

The stress grows as tolerance dissolves.

For the past 7 hours, absent 1 for swimming, I have been buried within these three projects. The monster of which is an interdisciplinary examination defense I must prepare for a client whom is far from ethical.

I intend to succeed in this test. I have great intent, but even broader expectations.

Regressing for a moment to my race last Sunday – I placed.
Second in my age group. Received a medal today recognizing said accomplishment. I don’t usually re-affirm my efforts, but I have not done something like this in over 3 years. Witness my child like enthusiasm.

Absent adequate hydration, I have continued this project, as I continued to suffer Sunday. Without knowledge of what I gambled on in those last 2,000 feet, and what the judgment will be on this defense, I have found a certainty in law and in running.

Somewhere in man’s greatest mistakes lies his greatest strengths.

Solace

Today was the nexus of great struggle and unimagined creativity.

My current educational pursuit is the most challenging endeavor I have ever engaged in intellectually. It steals my energy, and it robs my passions from outer outlets. Make no mistake – I absolutely love what I am doing, and yearn for more knowledge. More argument. More precedent. More possibility.

But at times, it makes me so very tired. At times I want to simply run - Forget the days proceedings. The same thoughts run through my head

I guess it's time I run far, far away; find comfort in pain,
All pleasure's the same: it just keeps me from trouble.



One week ago this day, I was injured to a degree of immobility, after improperly stretching my psoas major half-way through a twenty miler for the 2007 Disney Marathon.

I could not walk in forward direction. I was reduced to moving laterally into that emergency room.

This same injury prohibited me from participating in a local 8k road race, one year ago today. My father had worked tirelessly to ensure a fluid transpiration of said event. And I was stuck home. Staring at my entry fee for Disney. Searching online forums for solace.

He returned home hours later, with surplus post-race refreshments from the 25th Essex Turkey Trot. They sit in my basement today, dusty and covered in with the debris of a years time. I refuse to drink them. I did not earn them.

Today, I had a promise to keep. I had to run that very race, on the 26th annual year. I wouldn’t settle for a placid performance. I had been working on my lactate threshold the preceeding week. And I could run comfortably at a 7:00 min/mi pace. I had to test myself.

The course was by no means easy. Elevation rose steadily, creating a sense of sheer pain. There was little to no comfort throughout the entire endeavor. I couldn’t talk. I couldn’t really think about the pains in my body. Exhilaration masks the greatest of foes.

I recall vividly the mile 3.8 mark, wherein a sharp turn took the race left. And a man whom I clearly could see wanted to punish himself that day, banked on my right. He passed me, and I realized he had the pace I needed.

From this point on, I found pleasure in pain.

After my adrenaline released, and I saw him continuing to run hard upwards. I knew if a similar condition would have arisen in my preparation for this day, I would have surrendered. In this race, I needed more. I broke through. I stayed the course, unwavering in effort. The only element that changed was my heart rate, my feeling of imminent vomit, and the darkened smile inside my heart.

I had a rough estimate of wherein my capacities lie, and an even rougher understanding of the remaining 1.2 miles. But I took a chance.

The last turn brought the course back onto the main road. The finish line invisible before cresting one last monster.

Giving a hill everything you have is not something that is easy to describe. It is not as beautiful or as bone-chilling as testimonies described with such facility in popular magazines. It requires audacity. And an unyielding commitment to surmounting the challenge therein. All one can do is realize what lies within. George Sheehan once wrote of a hill; What it demands of a man:

"..the Hill demands more and more. I have reached the end of my physiology. The end of what is possible. And now it is beyond what I can stand. The temptation is to say, ' Enough. ' This much is enough. But I will not give in. I am fighting God. Fighting the limatations he gave me. Fighting the pain. FIghting the unfairness. Fighting all the evil in me and the world. And I will not give in. I will conquer this hill, and I will conquer it alone."

Knowing there was resolve in the completion of this event, I thought at one point that if I do pass out on this corner, it would be for the noblest of ambitions.

My personal record at this distance is 38:20 (Feaster Five 8k, 11/25/04) Today I ran 37:00:00. Flat.



Running in this season is personal. Some love the foliage and the cold weather, others love to sweat in the heats of July.

On 4 hours of sleep, a state of dehydration, and a hurried promise to keep, I managed to find the balancing point. Thereafter, I continued my educational pursuits, while keeping a little grin at the new time on my wrist.

Running in these familiar towns, meeting old faces whom have seen far worse circumstances and injuries than I, gives solace to one who strives to maintain balance. It’s a simple pleasure. It is neither esoteric nor nostalgic. It is pure.



Cherished, days as this, are what plug the voids of uncertainty.

Yesterday I was able to run in a grand place.

Albeit, it has been some time since I ran there. But I also felt a comulsory urge to see this spectacular manifestation of New England autumn.

I'm running harder than I ought to this close to Manchester. Friday was tempo 7 miles. Yesterday was 8 miles in slippery mud and much and wet leaves.




I ran as the sun was setting, and left after dark.

Today, I feel a tingling in my left heel, though my hip pain is gone.

So today, I did my first long-base ride for Timberman 2007. 2 hours 4 minutes on the trainer.

God I love New England.

Getting Serious; The Road Is My Therapist

Since Manchester I have run two times. More than I have run after any marathon, within such short proximity to a completion thereof. Wednesday on the treadmill, 4 miles.

Today on the road, 8 miles at tempo pace. I felt like a XC runner finishing a race at the end. Strong push off, high knees, and great acceleration. The pain was gone. I felt a bit tight in the beginning, but this quickly abated.

But what I have to say here isn’t about me. It’s about my discovery of the most apt descriptions of running I have found.

One is Dr. George Sheehan’s Running & Being: The Total Experience. A storied book by a storied cardiologist, who knows what weaving a distance run into a man’s life means.

The other is today’s Endurance Planet Podcast, which I highly encourage all you download at www.enduranceplanet.com

I highly encourage all those whom are interested to check these grand sources out of their local reference desk, wherever it may be.

Running loosens the rough edges of my nerves.

As I sit my hamstrings ache.

Pure exertion cannot be replaced by skill or finesse.

Runner’s are always in pain or injured. It’s the ticket price, for low orbit-flying.

To say that to run is to fly is sensational. But its true.


And yet after all this, I’m still finding myself on the road.

When I run one of these damned endeavors, I always have a primary goal: To finish. I don’t seek, I merely discover.

Since I’ve adopted this philosophy, it appears that I’ve come out just fine. This last week has been something of a watershed moment in my life. I learned a lot about myself, but more importantly, about the resolve of the human condition.

I learned man must be prudent in his decisions, in dreams, and his expectations. This is the price one pays for having a manifest destiny.

I never expected this marathon to be preceded by a chain of events so original, and completely destructive of my emotions.

Today, for the first time in several months, I felt the tide turn. I felt resolute. I could put the bitter history of Disney and Boston to rest, and rectify the mistakes of recent history.

This is the price one pays for having a manifest destiny.

I don’t subscribe to a lot of the dogma of my generation. I shun conventional wisdom when others act pursuant therein. If the blood in my veins was qualitative, it would be 97% chivalry saturation, and 3% audacity saturation. Chivalry is not dead.

This is the price one pays for having a manifest destiny.

Having friends who transcend even the hardest of times, at the most uncommon moments, is a gift. I never expected, in all my wildest expectations, that I would owe so much, to so few.

This sport is demanding. But it is also hilariously simplistic. It requires the most simple of human attributes, and yet it tests these innate characteristics to the edge of human limits. After these limits are stripped of the gloss of culture, they are abolished.

Life is a lot like endurance sport. Both make you discover new obstacles, both require the respect of demands, and both allow one rise to new expectations

This is the price one pays for having a manifest destiny.


There is uncertainty in this sport.

If there wasn’t, it would not elicit the sensory emotion it does. Each of those runners I passed today ran their own race, independent of myself. But at the finish line, we all shared something.
There is a universal truth in running twenty-six miles, three hundred eighty-five yards. You need to be willing to leave the comforts of the familiar. You need to experience pain, desperation, and then you will be greeted with a euphoria like you have never known.

Manchester City 2007
Universal



tune: Duck & Run
3 Doors Down

Regress over a year ago into my life, and I was one who loathed change. I counted minutes. I pre-planned my advance plans, and had back up scenarios. I lacked the freedom I had sought for over 18 years.

Only those who intimately knew me before and after know what I speak of. I fail at conveying the dichotomy of my being again and again. Words and expressions can only convey what is received in the sensory world of communication.

I stand two days before another grand adventure of twenty six miles and three hundred eighty five yards. My family, my friends, and emotions are vested in this endeavor. It traverses the very area, that this dichotomy came to fruition. Thousands of miles over the same roads, are about to be re-visited.

Yet before this race, I have the chance to visit with special people, see new ideas, and gather new perceptions on what life entails.

In the last year, I can conceive of a handful of moments, when my world was rapidly altered - Sent in new directions, while providing a vivid sense of enlightenment.

One was following the most ill-placed running injury I had ever sustained:
The other was that sharp realization that balanced training incorporates new practices, and a great degree of fluidity.

On a cold rainy day at Franklin Park in the Boston suburb of Jamaica Plain, after running the first 2 miles in 2 weeks, a prudent runner simply told me

“When you come back, you want to be rewarded, not punished, for your obedience to your body”

The other was by a friend who now is among the closest.

“See this? This makes training become better. You’ll value it more. Trust me”

Both words are as clear now as they were then. They obliterated confusion. They provided a euphoric sense of relief. They changed my lifestyle anew, seeking whatever small satisfaction may be.

I’ve come to learn that life doesn’t peak, it merely rests. It doesn’t cease for the demands of timetables, deadlines or turning points. It merely adapts.

And at the end of this adaptation, clarity lies. I’ve seen both sides. And I’ve seen what happens when the tide is turned. And I’ll be damned if I drown in it.