Facing Reality Doesn’t Make it Easier to Deal With

After spending two days at the Prefontaine Classic I was filled with so many thoughts about my own running and coaching careers and how much both of those things helped define who I am (was). 

Last night I was reading this book and came across a passage that really hit home while I struggle with the idea of no longer being a runner. He was describing an encounter at an aid station during a 100k he was running in Bishop, California. On page 25 he wrote:

“The volunteer brought my water bottle back. I thanked him. I also thanked him for being out there. 

‘No problem,” he said. “Glad to be helping out.”

“You a runner?” I asked. 

“Used to be. I miss it.”

“It was a familiar refrain. I heard it all the time from ex-runners. They missed it. Missed running. Missed the magic and the misery of accelerating the human form to a place where comfort is discarded and something approaching anguish and suffering becomes the glorious, detached state of being. As I continued running down the trail, I thought about myself as an ex-runner. I couldn’t form a vision of that man. I’d defined my finish line as a pine box and had no intentions of stopping until then. And what would become of me if something should happen that prevented me from running? I would cease to exist; I would extinguish and evaporate. I needed running to be complete, not like a junkie needs a drug to get high but like a seed needs water to become fully what it is.”

That might sound overly dramatic but believe me I couldn’t have said it better. I too believed I would run as long as possible and was not prepared for having it taken away from me suddenly. The irony (there’s that word again) is that looking back it wasn’t sudden. I was getting slower and struggling to maintain any kind of pace during longer runs. I thought it was just because I was overweight and getting older. Obviously it was a side effect of my PNH that had yet to be diagnosed. And then it reached the point where I simply can no longer run. 

This past weekend I went to a great track meet at Hayward Field, the Prefontaine Classic. There were some great performances and being surrounded by enthusiastic track fans was fun. While I was at the meet I was also following the progress of Spell, Gerald, Kari and others I knew running the Pikes Peak Ascent. 

The meet was Friday night and Saturday and I was hoping to “run” the Butte to Butte 5K but after getting home late Friday and getting going early on Saturday I just didn’t have the energy to try it. It sucks!

Up next? There’s a race Smitty and I have done on Labor Day, the Eugene Brews Cruise 5K. It has a noon start so 🤷‍♂️ maybe. Until then? Who knows, it’s day to day or even hour to hour some days.