Go Get It!!!!

When you see something you want, go after it. If you've been drooling for a while, don't keep sitting there because eventually you'll drown!

I believe in making an adventure out of every day. When I didn't feel good last year, I wasn't doing that. I was fatigued and depressed. I felt like I wasn't living life fully. My running went down to almost nothing, and my enjoyment of life went with it. Everything I do in my life suffered. I wasn't sleeping, and my fatigue got to a point where I felt unable to function, until one day I had one of those experiences when you hit bottom.

None of us know how long we'll be here. If you listen to cancer survivors, you hear many of them say how much the experience made them change their behaviors, and their attitude toward life. When you get a reality check on your mortality, appreciating every day and making the most of it becomes a higher priority than ever before.

It's not necessarily to have a life-threatening illness to take that attitude, though.

Why not make the most out of every experience you feel is worthwhile? Why live life halfway, making a half-assed effort toward doing things?

For so many years I always wanted to do Badwater and never could get it all together, between the time, money, health, fitness, and most of all, energy. I've suffered from fatigue at various times, for years. You might ask, how can you run ultras and have fatigue? Well if you talk to many ultrarunners you'll find out that many of them do far more training miles and race events than I ever do. I have had to learn to manage it.

Even when I'm balancing things and managing my energy well, I still have fatigue. I am starting to learn that it's not so much fatigue but when my energy is misdirected. Being a creative person presents problems for the people who like everything to be black and white. I find myself living this theme over and over again in my life, because people don't know what to do with me.

You know, the people who don't color outside the lines, because that messes things up and they get off track with the plan. I drive them crazy. They like a safe, comfortable, narrow little tunnel to live in. When I let too much of my energy get caught up into their tunnels, it makes me crazy. I get tired of beating my head against the brick walls of their tunnels. I get frustrated, angry, and eventually, if I let it go too long, depressed.

I like to live my life so I can do things. I don't do brick walls, lines, or coloring books unless they have blank pages. I don't like to feel like I'm being restricted or held back from living to my potential. I have two choices. Shrivel up and die, or rebel and break out.

One of the clearest memories for me in the entire Badwater run was in the last 5 miles. I was powering up the final ascent to Whitney Portal on that impossibly steep road, and making great time on my sub 48 hour goal. One of the finishers ahead of me was on her way down in her support van after leaving the finish line. The van slowed down as it approached me, she hung her head out the window and dangled her finishers medal, and yelled, "GO GET IT!"

In my sleep deprived, euphoric haze, I'm sure I cut a few extra minutes off my finish time just by the little boost she gave me with those words.

Recently I was losing a lot of my energy in anger and frustration over a situation at work where I was not getting my needs met. I've taken a lot of steps to correct that and I am doing better all the time. There are things I'm unable to control, that are interfering with my "GO GET IT!". So I've had to take an alternate path, and it's taking me time and effort to clear the debris from that path so I can travel it.

Sometimes we can learn things from unexpected events. Sometimes we encounter people in our lives, and we don't understand why, but they make a huge difference.

I have a friend who is dealing with horrible anger, from a situation over which he has little control. When he is at his worst, it's painful to be anywhere near him, he exudes toxic, negative energy. He knows this, but he doesn't seem to be able to control it.

That's how he's coping with things right now, and no one is going to change that except him. I tried too hard to reach out to him and he wasn't having any part of it, he needs to do things on his own, his own way. So I've backed way off and let him know that I'm still here and I care what happens, but I'm staying away.

When he is able to let go of the anger, he is one of the most enjoyable people in the world to be around. I've learned a ton from him and his enthusiasm helped propel me to get off my butt and make a Badwater finish a priority, and in many ways he has been pivotal in helping me see where I need to go from here in my life's work. He's inspired me, including the times when he's been at his worst.

It's important to me to honor those people in my life. This past week I had a really nice conversation with that friend, one of the first we've been able to have in a long time. I caught him in a rare moment, when he'd let go of his anger. I appreciate him so much, anger and all, in ways I've tried to tell him but there really aren't any words for that. What it means to me is all wrapped up in the energy that's carrying me forward in my pursuit of new and exciting endeavors.

I'm off for a run now, and then I'll come home and get back to work. There's a lot to do.












GO GET IT!

Looking Forward

This time of year is always important for me. It's a time for spiritual renewal, for looking back over the past year's events, and looking forward to the unopened gifts of the coming year. With the dark, cold and snow it gets quiet outside, I have the cool air and gray skies to myself, people have mostly gone indoors, and it's a time for introspection, reflection, and quiet planning for what's ahead.

Solstice is when the light returns and I always think of January 1st as the first day of spring. This year we are lucky to have a blue moon. December 31 is the second full moon this month.

Since Across the Years is not happening this year it is important to carry out my tradition, which is to run in the new year. I will miss my running companions but they will be with me in spirit, in various places around the planet, doing the same.

I'm going to spend 12 hours of the holiday being upright and moving forward into the new year. No goal for miles, just move forward for 12 hours, listen to music, meditate, and celebrate being alive, the return of the light, give thanks for all the good in my life, and give thanks for all the difficulties which have really been opportunities for change and growth.

The way I always prepare for this is to make my list of meditations for the run. Things I want to focus on, things I want to change, and always in a spirit of gratitude. I am not sure where I'll run yet, I am so used to running in circles while I do this, but I'll find the right place, with a view of the big sky and the mountains.

Anyone can join me, on their own, in any place, at any time during the two days of December 31 and January 1. Run in circles, run a straight road, trail or path, or run on a treadmill. Just go. Move from one year to the next, with the energy and motion of being alive. If you do, write me a note and tell me what you did, and more importantly, what you learned.

Happy Solstice!

When the wheels come off...

This blogpost is not exactly about running, but it is so much about running without actually running.

"You must unlearn what you have learned"
- Yoda

"Hell is other people"- Jean-Paul Sartre


When the wheels come off, follow your own compass.


And start driving a tank.

That's about the only way to describe my past week. It's been overloaded, and by Wednesday my wheels were coming off in a big way.

I have always followed my own inner compass, my own light, the thing that guides me. Some people call it God, whatever it is, I follow it. I try to keep my head screwed on straight and I try not to let other people's "stuff" influence me.

Somehow lately I've lost my way, I've been distracted by a bunch of things, I feel vulnerable, and I seem to have gotten way off course. I need to find my compass again!

No human is perfect and no one knows the answers. Anyone who thinks they know the answers is way more screwed up than any of us admittedly screwed up people.

I adore my friend Chris. He is an ultrarunner, a nurse, an absolutely amazing fantastic, compassionate, understanding, nonjudgmental, generous human being, and he has the guts to admit his own weaknesses while following his own compass. He got me through this week and helped me find the compass I dropped in the deep wet grass and leaves and new snow we've been having the past two days.

Actually, if I had been running all this time and was still putting energy into doing ultras, I would probably be much more centered and able to clearly focus on the direction my inner compass is pointing.

I can't really go into the specifics, and it has nothing to do with running. Someone I care for is hurting and I can't do anything about it, and I got lost in it, and I need to back off and do my own thing.

After losing your way, losing the feel for boundaries, getting wrapped up in things beyond a point where it's healthy, you need your most trusted friends to bounce things off of, and get their feedback, to help you get back on track. Everyone else can weigh in but pretty soon you get lost in the blah, blah, blah and everyone's opinions and prejudices.

And people can be downright harsh and judgmental especially when they feel the least bit threatened by something they don't understand at all. It's really amazing how people you would expect to have empathy can have so very little. I wanted to drown out their noise, stick my fingers in my ears like the crazies on the political talk shows do and go "lalalalalalalalalalala".

Instead I spoke with three people I trust to be nonjudgmental since yesterday, including Chris, and that was so helpful. And that's all. I'm on my way back with my compass, but I'm driving a tank. I'll need it for protection when I go back and have to be in the middle of all the blah, blah, blah...

In the midst of all this, I haven't run. I worked four out of five days, busy, stressful days, and between that and the emotional burden of all this "stuff", I have been unable to sleep well and haven't been able to face my running shoes.

So yesterday, when I needed a good think and a good cry and some time alone, I went over to the environmental learning center and walked on the trails, in my clogs, risking my ankles, but I needed it. No one else was around.

There were big, low, gray puffy clouds that were off and on dumping sleet down on me, and the reds and golds of the trees in the dry meadows of tall grass were all so brilliant against the sky, I couldn't breathe, taking it all in, the intensity of the colors and how I felt, and the cold breeze with the wet snow coming down, it was like a psychedelic trip with all my senses and feelings!

And somehow as I walked that little place in the back of my brain started to click and things started to unravel and become clear and my compass appeared again. And some of the kinks began to straighten out.

And without even trying, the knots continued to unravel today. Still no energy to run, but I'm doing better. Maybe I will sleep tonight. Maybe I will run tomorrow.

I will run tomorrow.

Plateau

I went to Arizona last week and got back Tuesday. Things are okay, dad is doing well, he has a lot of information and lifestyle modifications to consider, but otherwise doing quite well. There isn't much new information, and there isn't much exciting happening here.

It was weird to be in Arizona again. I enjoyed the heat, but I ran on the Arizona canal every day and it's the same flat gravel hard surface, the view only changes if you change directions from west to east. I can't say I miss it. The weather gets nicer in the winter, but quality of life is so much better here.

I feel like I'm on a plateau now. Things have leveled out, there's a certain amount of "stuff" I'm dealing with, trying to get a balance back in my life somehow, dealing with the fatigue that hasn't left me. I can't say I'm depressed because I certainly don't feel despair, and I don't feel a lack of enthusiasm. I just don't have much energy and running feels very slow and stagnant.

I saw two runners today on the bike path, both moving along at a good pace, looking light on their feet, and I felt like a pile of clay, peeling my legs one at a time over and over off the concrete path. I wish I could feel lightweight like that again. I'm only doing 25 miles this week, down from 30 and 40 the previous two weeks. I want to run, but I don't have the energy. I feel like I'm carrying a huge weight but it's not a physical weight. It's that feeling of needing to let out a big sigh, that empty, weighted down feeling in your gut when things aren't right.

Plateaus are something that athletes experience in their training, they get stagnant from doing the same workout routine over and over again. They make their gains, and then they reach a point where progress is so slow it's imperceptible. That's when they need to change things.

I am actively searching for a change. It will lead me down off the plateau or up another mountain, I'm not sure which, but these days I need to take it one day at a time and keep my eyes and ears open. Eventually I'll come to the end of the plateau and I'll see something that looks more like this:

One Step at a Time

I'm headed back to Arizona again this week. I had not planned to go back so soon, not until the holidays, but some things have come up and I need to go.

The road is long and stretches out far ahead of you, but you never know what's around the next curve. I have said it before, life is an ultra, and sometimes you find yourself looking at this:

But there's always a way to climb over it.




I wrote earlier about how I'm looking forward to going part-time at my job, I've felt fatigued and it's been affecting my entire life. I got the news last week that my dad is facing some health challenges and I'm going to Arizona to support him and my stepmom. Dad has a type of chronic leukemia and he's most likely had it for some time, but just found out.

I always wondered why he got so many colds. He takes good care of himself, eats well, exercises frequently, works out with a personal trainer and runs about 30-40 miles a week on his treadmill, and is a young 67, just started a new business, and has more energy than I have most days.

What's scary about this is that he's vulnerable to infections. That's what worries me most, being the ICU nurse who sees all the septic patients who come through. I'm scared he'll end up in a hospital.

He's going to have to make some lifestyle changes, mostly with regards to stress reduction.

We could all learn from that.

People reach a point where they realize their parents are aging, and my dad has always seemed so young to me. I've thought about it before, but always brushed it aside. Now it's like a giant cliff that can be scaled but needs to be approached cautiously, and there's always the danger of falling, or losing ground in the sand.

Last week I made the mistake of going to work after getting this news, and not having time to process it. It was the day from hell. It was almost traumatizing to be there, ICU is not the place you want to be when you're trying deal with your own personal life-and-death issues! I ended up taking the next two days off, and I've been running trails in the foothills trying to sort through my thoughts and feelings.

My dad has always been there for me, even in my worst moments, someone to admire and look up to, someone who believes in what he is doing and works hard and spent years building the business he was so proud of. It wasn't always easy and we didn't always agree, but he never let me down. We have a lot in common, we are both driven, high energy, focused people. He's improved with age, become more sensitive, more empathetic, more aware of the value of differences between people. My stepmom has been a positive influence on his life and all of us.

I didn't know about this when I asked to cut my work hours back, but now I'm glad I did and I intend to use the time to make more frequent trips to Phoenix, regardless of my dad's health status, which I feel will take a positive turn as he takes steps to manage it. Knowledge is power.

It's an odd feeling, knowing this, like running through sand. Somehow it gives you strength, even though the footing isn't secure. Life is short, we are all mortal, love while you're here, give thanks for all of the gifts in your life, learn to recognize the gifts. Be kind at every opportunity, and forgive yourself when you're less than perfect, because none of us are perfect.

Keep moving forward, and you'll find a way over the cliff and down the other side, where the road resumes. I am reminded of the quote on the back of the Badwater 2003 race t-shirt.










"as I have always held it a crime to anticipate evils, I will believe it a good comfortable road until I am compelled to believe differently"
-Meriwether Lewis, May 26, 1805

Gifts

My 45th birthday is coming up next week. Like the speed limit sign says, this is fast enough, I don't need the years to go by any faster. It's hard to believe 45 is midlife when you feel like you're 23.

Today I felt like I got a birthday present, in an odd way. Lately I've been feeling sort of flat. Not depressed, but not really excited about running, or anything, and I've been dragging my feet about planning my next adventure. I'm not the only one, I've talked to a few other people lately who are also experiencing low energy and lack of enthusiasm.

I tend to get introverted and every so often I have to remind myself that there's a world out there, otherwise much of the time I'd be content to focus on whatever task I'm doing at the moment, or lose myself in my long solo runs.

The connection to others is a gift.

When I meet people who are depressed, they often have isolated themselves unintentionally, and they feel like they have lost their connections to others. Helping them reconnect is important, because the connections are still there, they just haven't been maintained. It usually takes a small effort. For depressed people that effort can seem like a huge mountain to climb, but that's another tangent.

This morning I was out on my run, planning to go about an hour, to get some miles in, and I wasn't feeling particularly enthusiastic but didn't feel bad. I was approaching Shields Street, headed west on the bike path when I ran into three runners coming toward me. I recognized Cat, and she was out with two other people running before their yoga class. She was about to stop and to talk to me but I turned around in their direction and started running with them. We ran about a mile and a half together before they turned off for yoga and I had to go home.

Just talking with Cat about her upcoming plans to run her first 50 miler, and her enthusiasm about having talked with another ultrarunner in her first 50K last year, who helped her see another way of looking at finishing an ultra, was uplifting for me. One of the runners she was with talked about how she hopes to do a marathon someday. Feeling that energy and knowing they are exploring something new reminded me that there are so many nice people out there in the running community, lots of people I have never run with, opening the possibilities to expand my social circle and running partners.

And when I got home I had two emails from running friends who will be joining me in my run on Sunday, Felix and Jeff. I felt so much better. Later I had energy to go back outside and enjoy the afternoon on the trails, after a massage from Cindy.

Sometimes you don't see the gifts that are hidden because you see only the screen that you've put up to filter things out. If you filter the world out too much you won't recognize a gift right in front of you, you're too busy screening things out.

Someone can brighten your day unexpectedly. It's a matter of opening your eyes and allowing yourself to receive the gift.

This afternoon I ran around Dixon Reservoir. It was a warm day, in the 70s, and the wind was gusting on the east side of the water. All the college students were out, restless, working on their tans, getting ready for spring break. Nothing is green yet, we need some rain. This is Colorado, and we should be getting several feet of snow by next month. We change the clocks back to Daylight Savings Time on Sunday.

Spring is here!

"Don't you have anything better to do?"

NO!

It occurred to me on my run the other morning that I'm coming up on my 25th anniversary of being a runner. I consider my starting date to be January 1984. It deserves some sort of celebration. More on that in a future blogpost.

I've been meaning to write a post to explain the ongoing evolution of my own personal philosophy of running, somewhat grounded in theory and spirituality but mostly based on time and experience, that has brought me to where I am now in my own approach to running ever longer distances, and my current state of feeling and thought about what running means to my life.

"Why do you do it?"
I could try to explain until I turn blue to those skeptics who think running for days at a time is not only insane, but a big waste of time that could be better spent on other so-called productive things.

That wouldn't be productive.

What I can do is attempt to explain it to anyone interested enough in the why of ultrarunning, to read this blog. Most people who hear about what I do are mildly curious but have no interest in doing that sort of thing themselves. A few might be secretly envious of whatever it takes to do it, but consider their lives so far removed from the freedom to have the level of motivation, dedication, and fitness it takes, that they never attempt it. People do ask me a lot of questions about what drives me, what I think about, and how I feel when I'm doing these runs.

I'll explain from a few key theoretical, spiritual, and psychological approaches without going too deeply into any of them, and then integrate it into a holistic, balanced model that I think is where I've arrived at this point in my life, but is always evolving.

People often ask me, "What do you get for finishing a race? Is there money, or sponsorship?"

That's a perfect place to start. They want to know about an end product. Money, sponsorship, status, recognition, and other things are tangible rewards to which we are so accustomed in our culture when we see the media attention focused on big money sports like golf, football, and baseball. These rewards are extrinsic factors, they come from outside the individual athlete and can often play a role in motivating talented athletes to continue in a sport to professional status. The athlete might be originally coming from a state of intrinsic motivation, but these extrinsic motivators can't be ignored.

Every four years we are reminded of the other sports that normally receive little attention, when the Olympics roll around and we are treated to two weeks of spectatorship. A gold medal and all the sponsorships, commercial advertising contracts, and opportunities to benefit from celebrity status are also extrinsic factors that are available to the few athletes who reach this level.

Ultrarunning, and even more so, multiday running, is even less visible. It's not in the Olympics, it's rarely on TV, and most people have never even heard of it. For most ultrarunners, if the race offers a belt buckle to finishers, that might be the only extrinisic, tangible reward they receive. After all, it takes time and effort to train for an event, time and money to prepare for and go to the event, hard physical effort and time to run it and time to recover from it. And in our culture, time is money.

"For a belt buckle????!!!"

Yes, and sometimes no. Sometimes there isn't even a belt buckle. Sometimes there isn't even a listing of the runner's name in some obscure running magazine that they finished or even won the Frozen Fat Ass 50K in 6 hours and 35 minutes in below zero temperatures with a 20 mph headwind. Meanwhile the front page of the sports section of the Denver Post shows a photograph of the winner of a local 5K getting a check for $1000 and it only took them 15 minutes in perfect conditions on flat city streets, and they didn't even pay an entry fee because the race director was generous enough to comp them in and put them up in a hotel the night before.

No wonder non-runners are confused by this diverse sport lumped under the label "running". They see pictures of an all-out sprint for the finish line in a 5K road race and then when they hear of ultrarunners who spend half their time walking in a 100 mile trail race, they think, "That's not running. I could do that!"

The public is so accustomed to seeing the tangible extrinsic motivators paired with a sweaty, skinny, straining, sprinting racehorse, that they don't know what to think of the slightly overweight middle-aged guy walking up a rocky hill on a trail eating a granola bar and chasing a packet of energy gel with a bottle of water with a big fat pack on his butt, 42 miles into a 50 mile trail race, he's smiling and taking his time, but he's moving forward and will cross the finish line no less sweaty but at a lot slower pace. And he might get a belt buckle if he finishes under the 12 hour time cutoff, but he's more likely to take 14 hours.

Intrinsic motivation comes from within the individual. Examples of intrinsic rewards are pride, self-satisfaction, or a feeling of personal achievement.

This has been explored by cognitive psychologists who study motivation, like Mihalyi Czikszentmihalyi. His concept of flow can be applied to any activity where a person becomes "completely involved in an activity for it's own sake." (Czikszentmihalyi, 1990, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience) Flow exists where challenge and skill are perfectly matched, and the person is in a state of focused attention and intrinsic motivation.

In our culture we are so focused on the external rewards, and money and other tangibles are of such great importance, that it's hard for people to focus away from that. It's hard for them to remember that there are other great and valuable sources of reward out there that don't have a dollar value on them. An economist might argue that anything can be measured in terms of dollars, but I'll let them chase after me and catch up to me in a 100 mile race to argue that.

To some schools of thought it really is almost a subversive act to pursue anything that doesn't lead to money or those extrinsic rewards. So I understand when people have a hard time wrapping their minds around why anyone would put so much effort into something that doesn't "pan out".

But I know I feel my best while running, I can lose myself and totally escape if I want to, or I can emerge from my run with a mental list of fresh ideas and problems solved. I feel good after a run. I feel good remembering my last run and anticipating my next. Running leads me anywhere I want to go, and I always come back to myself, better off.










"Joy is the most infallible sign of the presence of God." -Leon Bloy



When I think of spirituality, I don't associate it with religion. Religion is nearly a foreign concept to me. With a few brief and unwelcome exceptions, I had a highly secular upbringing and this has extended to my adult life. I rejected any religious views held by extended family members and my own parents never forced it on me. The most formal exposure I've ever had to learning about religion, that I care to remember as palatable, was while attending a Quaker School as a child in Pennsylvania in the 1970s, and that was about as low-key as you can get in a school with any religious affiliation.

What I didn't realize was the impression this left on me. I've been studying a bit on my own and somehow things keep circling back in serendipitous ways, and I've discovered that the values espoused by Friends (e.g. integrity, equality, simplicity, peace) align most closely with my own personal and political values.


For me simplicity has always been about having few things, about not getting caught up in the dominant culture that is so materialistic. As I've gotten older I find myself with more things than I used to have, but I do try to keep my accumulation to a bare minimum of what I really use. Running is a great sport for simplicity, when it comes down to it, all you really need is a pair of running shoes.

I try to keep simplicity within my life, to keep things uncluttered, to minimize the number of things to which I devote my energy. It's hard for me because I am a creative person but I need intellectual challenge and sometimes those two (left- brained, right-brained) are in direct conflict with each other. I have to make dissatisfying choices sometimes, mostly with neglecting my painting, but I find other ways to meet my need for creative expression.

I find that the most important thing is keeping "work" in perspective. If you can find ways to make whatever work you do seem like it's not "work", then it's a lot easier.

When I discovered the Take Back Your Time movement and connected with that, it made me look at my life's work in a whole different perspective. Though I'm not gainfully employed in it now, I studied natural resources recreation in graduate school and my dissertation research focused on the psychophysiological components of outdoor recreational pursuits in restorative settings. I later moved away from the cognitive psychology-oriented natural resources end of the recreation spectrum and toward the exercise physiology end.

The Take Back Your Time movement advocates for simplicity, among other things. It is all connected to peace, as far as I'm concerned. It's about quality of life. It's highly spiritual from my point of view. Spirituality could be defined as a sense of being connected, and a sense of being part of something greater than yourself.

At the same time as experiencing connectedness to something greater, there is the matter of being an individual. Running is rarely viewed as a team sport, but the individual nature of ultrarunning has much appeal in being yourself as pure and unmodified as you can possibly be in this culture that values conformity and complicates our lives so much when we allow it to.

I'm not going to explore the other values except to mention this about peace and running and a bit about equality below. Running promotes and nurtures peace within the runner, which is the first step to having peace in your life, once you have peace in yourself, you extend that into the world around you.

I have met many of my friends through running, and many of my favorite people are runners. As big a part of my life that running is, at the same time I strive to interact socially and meaningfully with non-runners, non-athletes, and runners of different abilities because it's so important to have that balance. Every one of us has a gift to offer each other. It's important to not get so caught up in one thing that we forget to recognize what other people can offer, and because one person has a gift, they are no more special than any other human being. No one needs to be elevated above anyone else. I guess that's part of the testimony of equality that I so long ago incorporated into my own value system.

I love the following excerpt from the statements of Satyajit Saha. A discussion of multiday running would not be complete without some reference to the Sri Chinmoy Marathon Team, but since I have not been involved in any Sri Chinmoy events, I can't speak for it. Anyone interested in further learning about multi day running events should google on Sri Chinmoy and start reading. Satyajit Saha writes,
"Transcendence! Self-transcendence is the essence; the quintessential core of what multiday running is about. During a multiday transcendence event all the trivial nagging minute forces of human frustration and sorrow that dog mundane, habitual living melt away and dissolve in the one-pointed focus and mission of covering at least one more mile before taking pause, or giving in. The struggle of running becomes the sole mission, the all-consuming purpose of the runners' consciousness. The runners' consciousness becomes clear, uncluttered and untrammeled in its singleness of purpose. Just run one more lap. One more lap. One more lap. Nothing else matters. The body aches, the nervous system is taxed to its limit. But the mind is clear. The heart is clear. There is nothing to prove to anyone. No place else to be. No bonds, no cares, no worries. Just run, or walk, and be free. The rest of the world takes care of itself. Just run one more lap.

It seems to me that the other runners feel this and commune with this Spirit which percolates through the struggles of each. It is unspoken, but the runners know, and they know the other runners know. In certain ways they feel connected to each other more than they can possibly express. The only expression of this unexplainable oneness is to push for another lap-run another mile, and another mile. And when it is all over, even before the body and mind have fully recovered, the hints come up from the subconscious; images, memories of something very, very special - the hunger to run another race, the call from inside to return to the Source, to run another mile, one more mile. That's multiday running. And the training becomes a daily celebration of what it truly means to be alive. "

"A spiritual person tries less to be godly than to be deeply human."- Rev. William Sloan Coffin, Jr.













"What do you think about while you're running? Don't you get bored?"


People always ask me this and it used to drive me crazy. My immediate, uppity thought used to be, How could you ever get bored? You must find yourself pretty boring if you can't stand to be with yourself for any period of time without some artificial outside source of stimulation.

I am sure there are plenty of people who do find running to be boring. I rarely find myself bored with anything, it's only when I am restricted by some outside source in what I can do at the moment, and never with running. But then I avoid things that I find to be boring, as those people do with running.


My mind doesn't start out active when I go out for a run. It's sort of a passive thing, I let the ideas and thoughts come to me. I don't force it and I don't try. Things pop into my head, depending on what's been on my mind, if I'm stressed about anything in my life, or where I am running. Sometimes it's enough just to pay attention to your surroundings because of traffic or other hazards.


Generally I try to avoid city streets and I find my eyes looking over the landscape and I find running a huge source for inspired creativity. By creativity I mean anything I'm doing, whether writing, painting, cooking, studying, or solving problems in any aspect of my life.

When I paint so many of my paintings have a common theme, a road through them, with the landscape rising on both sides and out in front, stretching out forever.







I find that on most of my runs I am running through landscapes so I see elements of the landscape from a number of different angles and perspectives, particularly if I'm doing an out and back run and go the opposite direction. I'm going at a slow pace so I notice details, have time to absorb them, and make mental notes.






Someone once told me that you have to love your subject in order to paint it. By the time I've finished painting something I feel like I know it so completely that I don't know where I end and it begins. That wouldn't be healthy if it were a human, there would be no boundaries. But it does create a bridge between you and the subject. When I run in beautiful places those places become a part of me and I feel like I can go there again, I know it so well, that I can almost escape.


Running for me is social, it's spiritual, it has physical rewards, it's restorative, there's an intellectual component to it, it fits with my own values of simplicity, it has minimal impact on the environment most of the time, and it's presented me with so many opportunities to personally learn and grow in ways that reach far beyond myself. I've learned and I am still learning, being consistent, being dedicated, and knowing that short term discomfort can be brushed aside in a way that yields many intrinsic rewards.

In Death Valley this summer, I saw how the heat strips you of any pretense and humbles you. You have to respect this force greater than yourself, you are relying on your good sense, your preparation, the wisdom and commitment of your team of crewmembers to guide you safely through and out of there.

What I learned from Badwater is that I was able to transcend my ability to tolerate discomfort and perservere, in a way that I had never achieved before. People have asked me, "Why would you want to put yourself in pain?"

It was painful, yes, every step of the last 50 miles was painful, but I was able to somehow focus my mind away from the source of pain-my feet-to push through it and come out on the other side of it. I found a huge source of strength that I didn't know about. If that isn't intrinsically rewarding then I don't know what is.

To summarize as simply as possible, I find myself intrinsically motivated to run, running is aligned with my personal values, I find that running helps me feel connected to other people and things which enhance my quality of life.

Talking about self-transcendence is one thing. But in my conscious day-to-day activity and thought, I'm not even actively, consciously thinking about trying to transcend myself or anything. All I know most of the time when I think about running is this, I'm never happier than when I'm running around in circles, which is why I keep going back, year after year to do it.


Here's what I wrote about New Year's Eve, at last year's Across the Years 48 hour run:
It's a miracle and a blessing that we meet here, this same group, year after year, to be together in this single pursuit of the same thing, while each individual runner brings their own meaning, their own philosophy and reason for doing it...it feels like we're dancing around the track for days on end together, some to music, some to the night sky, some to their own creator.

Therefore to wrap up this long-winded discussion, I'm going to quote myself.
"If you see me running around in circles, leave me alone. I'm happy."









Photo credits: Across the Years race pictures by Nathan Nitzky