RESOLUTE


Our hides become weak in the presence of the new.

I am not one for resolutions per annum. But this year, I decided I would resolve to stretch my ideals and practices beyond what I knew. If I were to be presented in a context where I had not been, I would choose it over the comforts of the familiar.

In summary, I would try to become more agile. More flexible. Less oriented with the familiar.

It has worked with great success thus far. I have ceased multi-sport for the last month, focusing solely on running, and I have begun to feel and breathe and live more like what I was reared to be.

On the emotional and mental levels, I have shattered the walls of inhibition with the tools of uncertainty and ambition. The discussions of the late topics have faded, while the burning ambers of a fire long past are still white hot.

I’m not a prophet nor a cartographer but I can see that this road is taking me into uncharted territory. The distance is long, but with the aide of Lydiardian practice, I can find what I am destined to overcome and reach.

My only fear in this grand beginning is failing to acknowledge the stairs I have climbed and continue to repair. They are the roots of my achievement, and they ought be guarded with the sharpest of swords.

To describe this pursuit as a chapter, a benchmark, or a goal is a fallacy. For it does not require an end, but does mandate a beginning. It requires an uncompromising pursuit of the new, predicated on optimism and vigor. It cannot be achieved with bravery alone, but requires the tacit consent of failure, and the resolve to transcend it.

R
unning never felt so foreign.

On my run this afternoon I felt as if my body was shutting down. My legs felt like they forgot how to lift. My feet forgot how to land. My epidermis how to sweat.

It appeared as if I had made a huge mistake.

I had no flexibility. My legs were filled with wet sand.

I have been pursuing a vigorous core regimen over the last 14 days. The progress and strength is undeniable. But it comes with a heavy price. Muscle creates great weight when forged over time. Witness mistake number one.

My intake of lactose has also been moderately increased which breeds feels which are axiomatic. Today I had servings from this Faustian food group three times before I ran. Witness mistake number two.

By running with great frequency, failing to hit my recovery window, and inadequate stretching, coupled with lack of rest has led me into an wall of paralysis. Working through the schedule and regimen of another deadens the spirit and evokes nothing by self-sacrifice. Witness mistake number three.

The following were the most vivid impediments towards locomotive freedom. School yard brawls, inept traffic directors, excess of lactose, overdressing in slushy rain and black snow.

If this sport was this hard every time it was pursued, I can fundamentally say I would not ever attempt it. There are some days when I feel as if I was quite literally born to run.

Today was not one.

Return to Normalcy


I have decided to tweak my physical constitution.

When one routinely performs a certain act, lives a certain way, or worships a certain God, each respective item begins to forge the man.

The hammer of the will galvanizes the man upon the anvil of environment.

I was a runner for three years before I entered multi-sport. I was a student of the roads, a disciple of distance. I knew nothing of cadence or bilateral breathing or PSI. And I was better for it.

So I decided last week that I want to return to this state. Inhabit my body. Remain cognizant of sleep patterns, my turnover rate, and how low I can get my resting heart rate.

For a long time I thought satiation and tranquility was achieved my maximal exertion. This is false. I have re-learned what I knew in 2003, and in what in 2005 was unconscionable. Simple motion through space elates one. Nothing more is necessary. Not training three hours a day, or three times a day, or both. Rather, the simple elegance of vesting in that one hour of freedom, wherein, as the late George Sheehan said, "The first 30 minutes is for the body, the last thirty minutes is for the soul."

It is here where I find the gravity of my soul.

I don't find it cycling, or swimming. I recall numerous workouts in triathlon, where all I would want to do is drop the bike, get out of the water, and just run. That's all. Nothing more. Just run.

It is for these repeated desires, that I am becoming a runner again. I am resolute to run, and train as such, absent the mechanized distractions of multi-sport, or the inherent acidity of swimming.

This is who I was. And whom I will become again.

I can say unequivocally that in endurance sport,"Some Finish Lines Mean More Than Others"

I am at the point now where I can no longer observe the future.

The moment I presently am living in weighs so heavily upon my every thought and action that I do.

I’ve been experiencing it for a long time now. But it is reaching a breaking point.

The interpersonal arbitration. The pursuit of running excellence. The indecision I face in relationships. I just keep moving forward, laughing and being myself. I don’t do it to be coy. I do it because that’s all that I feel is left.

It propels me through the choppiest of waves and above the tallest trees.

I’m not looking to make a scene, I’m just trying to keep my senses above the fray, and keep my actions righteous.

Arguably the strongest lesson I’ve learned over the last five years is that when your ideals and hopes are as high as mountains, it’s a long way down.

But on that way down you meet things that transcended even the grandest of ideals and standards.

I haven’t seen every truth in this world I had envisioned, or hoped to. But I have seen the brutal honesty of disappointment, the irrevocable undertow of moralism, and the earth-shattering tremors of broken integrity.

Above this awful mess of wickedness and the plunder of another’s standards to bolster my own, lies a microcosm of what I used to be. I don’t regret anything I’ve done, but I do feel that a lot of my former being is now dissolved. It has effectively been ridden from my personal ethos.

Maybe I am helplessly conservative. Afraid of, regretful of, and utterly abhorrent towards change.

The ocean of life is one of great beauty. Yet it’s colossal and shattering power is something that ought not be ignored. It can break the most unsinkable of ships.

The ship I sail in today is a formidable ship. Yet it is a far different vessel than the one I was steering in 2003.

At the very least, I can take solace in my acknowledgement of the tides and the weather. The elements of life steer the ship off course from time to time. But so long as the ship returns to port, all will not be lost.

This compendium began as a runner’s diary. It was solely centered on the pursuit of distance running. If you ask me to look back and find the moment when I found Tri-Fury (my triathlon club), I can’t find it.

About 4 times per year, I begin to immerse myself in running. Not just the sport, but the culture therein. It is antithetical to triathlon.

Devoted single sport enthusiasts understand this. Lance spoke highly of “Le train bleu” when he rode for Postal. Michael Phelps understands something about a pool that I can only read of. And Zatopek and Prefontaine knew of the beauty of victory.

The oddity that lies within triathlon is the degree of ambiguity it bestows upon it’s competitors. Labels cannot be cast upon racers. It is as if one cannot devote entirely to one endeavor. Or in the case of the author, it presents a greater challenge than previously faced.

Triathlon often rewards a dividend based on financial status. A simple example will suffice:

Race Fee: $95.00
Goggles: $25.00
Swim Cap: $10.00
Wet Suit (Optional): $300
Tri-Bike: $1,000+
Helmet: $50
Sunglasses: Exponentially expensive
Running Shoes: $90
Sports Drink: $2.00

Factually, people of low and challenged demographics rarely compete in multi-sport. I reside in a city north of Boston, and I find few if any cyclists and runners out on the roads. I grew up twenty miles north of here, and one could not turn their head without hearing the whir of Zipp wheels or the laughter in Gil’s Athletic Club as they jaunted down the road.

I go out of my way to write this, because I feel this question has no answer. Running poses a similar conundrum. But I still do it. I don’t need an answer. The mere exhibition of moving through space elates me.

Running is, and continues to be, an endeavor wherein man is placed against his abilities given to him not by the value of his equipment, but by the hand of God.

Ten Miles In Narnia

I have the propensity to get lost in the woods.

Bradley Palmer. Appleton. And Narnia. My backyard across the brook.

When I was young, I used to sprint off the bus with my best friend and neighbor Justin, wherein we would capture those precious last hours of sunlight in the deep mud and snow and bark of an eternal landscape we just called “The Paths”

We would build signs, create forts, and embellish the compound we referred to as the laboratory, pronounced “la-bor-a-torie” All it was, was a hollowed out foundation to a former dwelling, with several roots which had subsequently grown in an arch over it. It’s still there the last time I checked. We ran through a large open field which had once been used for farming, as the tilling troughs and valleys were still carved into the soil, encrusted in frost. This was called the “Field of Illusions” None of this was lawful, for it was not our land, and years later when I still played here as a pre-teen, armed with more mature toys, I would pay a heavy price.

We did this every day of the week, merely because once we traversed that small brook with whatever engineering tool we found in the earth, we were in a different world. Wholly subjugated from our backyards. We were now in the paths.

We connected with our “bases” through obsolete baby monitors that hardly worked over 100 feet. We would use the more advanced method of Fisher Price when the baby monitors would die. In any event, we still would get lost.

I found myself doing nearly the same thing today, only closer to a larger city, and our backyards were not visible, and I couldn’t run back in five minutes if one of us cut our legs really badly, or twisted an ankle, and couldn’t walk.

It can empirically be stated that I have the propensity to get lost in the woods.

Today I embarked into the woods of Narnia with the full ambition and hope of covering the mid-distance of 10 miles, the benchmark of a marathon training program.

Absent Fuel Belt or PowerGel, I began to test my bearings since Saturday’s sixteen miler at the lake.

Much mud, slush and crusted snow remained. Witness Anthony’s contentment grow exponentially.

All went well until around the one hour mark, wherein, on my return to the start, I hurdled a large tree with remaining branch, tearing the flesh from my left knee. I then fell, stumbling onto rock face. Scarred and bruised, I resolved to find my way back.

I lost my sense of direction, which was not out of the ordinary. I began to stop sweating, my legs grew heavier, and the snow became deeper. These obstacles not withstanding, my watch read over 1:30:00 – Far longer than my anticipated time.

I eventually exited the woods, only to ascend the largest paved climb I have found thus far on my bike rides. My good friend Trevor nearly was side swipped by a rampant school bus at the bottom of said hill in autumn.

In the total of all these acts, I returned to my vehicle, no longer my backyard. And I now adore that place ever more. The Paths.

When I describe my endurance career, I’m not talking about a month or a year.

I describe an ambition that is infinite.

It lacks the finite qualities that define a man’s lifetime. For a man’s life is measured in years. It is not evaluated by the diminution in strength or stamina or the delayed onset of fatigue.

When I first began running, I was afraid of people seeing me out there. But I would do it at the most obvious of times. I ran as my senior prom was transpiring. I ran in the dark at my track after dinner. Two miles normally – Sometimes 4 if I felt particularly nutty.

When I look back at the injuries I’ve sustained, the crashes I’ve survived, and the waters I’ve exited, I merely shake my head in condemnation. But what’s frightening is that I can see myself doing the very same act for the very same principle tomorrow.

Webster defines insanity as the act of doing something again and again, while expecting said actions to yield different results.

Let me be clear: I don’t have an answer - That is what leads us to peril. But it also leads us to power.

This maze of measurement and idealism isn’t bound by genetic endowment. It is not sown in the driveways of suburbia. It isn’t experienced from the bleachers. It is truly and only understood in the sinews of the tested.

It means something different to everyone whom toes this line of fortitude.

That is why I go out of my way to flatly deny the idea of a professional and endurance career. The obstacles and dogmas therein are merely outworn slogans. They don’t drive man to his best.

The challenge of pursuit is enough to satiate any man’s soul. It nourishes the most hungry of ambitions, and it quenches the most parched dreams.

Maybe this is why I headed out the door this morning. Because I know that if I’m going to find my passion, it won’t be found in the breaths of Nietzsche, Augustine or Hobbes. It won’t be found in the marble palaces of this republic, or in the stains of the forgotten.

If I can keep this up, this simple pursuit of passion, forever as I may see fit, it will yield progress at the very least. To move forward with such an infinite ideal is a manifestation of an infinite ambition.

Resolved, from now until that ambition is quenched;

And not a day less will do.