2007 - May

[Mid Life Crisis Marathon Man]

In sitting down to write this response to Andy’s brilliant effort of May 6, and realising that one of my best mates was even right at that moment on the other side of the planet running the Belfast marathon, I had a flash of inspiration! There was only one way to properly contemplate all of this, and that was of course with a bacon sandwich and a pint of stout. And so armed with the appropriate carbohydrates, and toasting both Bill’s efforts in Northern Ireland, and Andy’s efforts with the pen I felt ready to tackle the greatest issue of all. Not whether there is or isn’t a God, or our great purpose in life, but that far trickier and devilishly ticklish question of “Why we run”.

It occurred to me that in trying to navigate one’s way through the bewildering smorgasboard of options that life presents us with, we sometimes make use of self-help gurus, philosophers and religion. But of course, this can be self-defeating for all it generally presents us with are even more confusing alternatives and exponentially rising numbers of questions. As Neo said in “The Matrix”, the (real) problem is choice. And obviously all of us here have, or are at least contemplating the option to run as a viable, life-enhancing experience.

Andy quoted George Sheehan and spoke of jumping off the train of comfortable indifference and actually making some choices in our lives. We’ve all done that to a certain extent – that’s why we’re here in RC. But even though we decide to move away from the buffet car and towards the a la carte restaurant, we may yet hesitate. Why are we choosing to do this? What do we really want from our running? Probably very few of us analyse it to this extent, but sooner or later we do indeed have to ask those questions, for there comes a time when we’re no longer sure of where we are going with our athleticism (especially those of us in the “mediocre” class).

I personally have found that as I get older, failure – once an unimaginable and generally avoidable horror - now becomes an annoying and unavoidably persistent part of life. From double chins and high blood pressure to failed job interviews, family troubles, business failures, and the death of parents, siblings and friends, the fact is that failure becomes an everyday occurrence. The glorious optimism of youth vanishes and a more prosaic daily reality sets in. I thought initially that I took up running because I needed to restore my failing health. And whilst that’s true, I think also there was always the need to vanquish some of those constant failings with a little success – a "victory over the mocking demons" as Andy put it so well. And as he went on to say with equal eloquence, yes, in mid-life expecially, we are not only running against the calendar (rather than the clock), but also to deliver news of liberty and victory, if only to ourselves. Probably most importantly, to ourselves.

Even so, many of us oscillate between dogged, focussed determination and wretched idleness. You reach a goal, or you fail to reach a goal – either way it seems to signal a period of inactivity, from which we have to begin the whole process again of jumping off the George Sheehan Express, making some choices and going through the motions once more, and that takes both physical and mental energy, often enormous quantities of it. For me, it’s often purely the thought that the train is actually an express service to the cemetary that gets me moving on my own two legs again. But that could of course also be attributed to normal middle-aged paranoia.

But as we said before, the problem is choice: do we make an effort to do this properly, or give up and jump back on the train, with its relative comfort, adequate buffet and sense of purpose (it is going somewhere, even if we don’t quite know the destination)?

Many people simply don’t need to understand why they run – it’s enough for them to know that’s it’s worthwhile, and they do it regardless. And all power to you. I am envious. But I suspect a few of us here are still troubled from time to time with not knowing why it is such a worthwhile thing. This becomes especially pertinent when it’s below freezing, we’ve slept badly and we’re 20 kilometres behind in our running schedule for the week. At those times you once more have to choose. And there it is again – choice – it’s always the problem. At the end of the day, we are solely responsible for our actions, and it’s therefore helpful to know what motivates us.

Like Andy, I suspect I’ll never know exactly what motivates me to run, but I have also decided that it is worthwhile, and having made that decision, I owe it to myself to bother to do it as well as I can. I too, get Sheehan. The thought of getting back on that train of complacency fills me with dread, even though I know I will sometimes succumb. As I once heard one of those self-help gurus say in a lecture one time, “Get up! Do something! If you just sit there, the only thing that’s going to slap you in the face is mediocrity!” OK, bad example given Andy’s explanation of the true meaning of that word, but I think we can all appreciate the context in which it was given.

I may never amount to much in the running world, but at least I know I’ve gotten off that bloody train.

Like Andy says, let’s go.

The secret to life is not in understanding it,
but in pretending that you do. - Kurt Vonnegut (RIP)