Recently, there has been an abundance of issues here in the Commonwealth, which assert that multi-sport, or endurance sport, is inherently dangerous. Deaths in a local triathlon, runners collapsing on 5 mile fun-runs, and other similar isolated issues, have had hungry journalists chomping for a chance to denigrate endurance athletes.



Writing about something which one has no background in, takes talent. It is an art of research and assertion. Truth is not made from assertions.



Moreover, those who routinely criticize the sport, are routinely frustrated with their own self. Their lives are inherently disappointing, devoid of ambition or progress, seeking whatever minimal illusion of safety and comfort they can.



I work in a large city, and come home to a smaller city, which is part of Metro-Boston. On any given day, I can look at a person, or a group of people, and nearly summarize their physical history, what their habits are, and what socioeconomic background they are from. Yes, I am wrong at times, but there are certain dogmas which do exist. This is life.



But then there also those who claw. Who refuse to maintain, or become utterly exhausted with the world’s “routine” They dig upward, pushing as hard as they can, even when their neighbors and families and colleagues deny their progress. But once the progress is certified, and the results reaped, those who didn’t believe, who cling to their own dying present, are left in a state of consternation.



In one of the articles I have read, it cited a man who went into cardiac arrest during a five-mile fun run. The man was a former athletic director of a local high school. After his collapse, a runner grabbed an AED from a police cruiser, and resuscitated him.



At the present, I know what gratifies me, what makes my day complete, and what I look forward to every day. It is not easy, nor is there always glory. There are not always PR’s, and there most certainly isn’t perfect weather. But there is pride…even arrogance.



But more importantly, I don’t lie awake thinking about my mistakes. About what I could have done. For it was done, regardless of how hard, or how painful, or how long it took. I don’t shutter at the idea of forgetting the world and its obligations and its perceptions of me, or what danger I’m doing to myself.



The world turns, but we don’t feel it move. A lot of things transpire in the course of a day, and a lot of things can go wrong, or go right. Most of these are beyond our hands.


But at the end of the day, I take sober satisfaction, knowing that that the world will not destruct in my absence. And neither will I.