“…When things look worst, we run the most.” —Christopher McDougall
You don’t need me to tell you how bad things look; the media just as well as the barbershop or coffee-stand banter writes up the diagnosis better than I ever could anyway. Suffice to say, things are rough all over. Add to that the fact that I just lost a job that I have held and loved for over a decade to nothing more than cold finances (seriously, I would rather have been fired in a flurry of incendiary curse words), and yeah, ‘rough all over’ seems a little gentle.
And yet, there’s our man of myth and strength Rickey Gates deciding that the time is ripe for a short run across a wide land, and ultra-endurance cyclist Juliana Buhring–perhaps the most remarkable example of smarts and wits and existential excellence our sport has to offer–all set to take her freshly wracked knee for a rip from tip to tip in Australia, and Jim Walmsley… holy cow, JIM WALMSLEY! And me–there I am too, lining up a series of races and adventures that I can’t really afford for the summer and yet so clearly can’t afford NOT to do. There I am, training smart and genuinely happy to do so, to run veritable fields of ice with the spikes on, to freeze my nads off for mile dumped on glorious mile of blizzard, and to ride that bike trainer so hard that, finally, it seems to be groaning more than I.
I give talks sometimes–nice folks who run big companies and teachers who gather to share stories and recharge sometimes call me up and ask if I’ll come to talk to them. I always go–I like talking to people and I love to talk about running and riding my bike and I especially dig it when I tell them that they can do it too, that adventure is right in their backyard, that fitness is probably more than fitting into a certain size jeans. I tell them about how I never really fit in, how my shape didn’t seem to have a spot in the world’s puzzle and how, until I found the trail and ultrarunners, that I was entirely unsure that there was a place where I fit. I felt, as Annie Dillard says, “totally unfit for life in this world,” as a matter of fact, and acted accordingly.
But then again, as our man George Sheehan says, “The unlived life is the real threat”–these days, it seems to me, that translates into saying, “Don’t forget, we teach through our actions.” In a time where words fail, where truth is up for grabs by the most forceful instead of something verifiable, what we DO is who we ARE. And so, reach your hand even more to those around you, invite more people out for a run, hold a community drop-in on how to change flats and fix chains, take a rip through someone else’s neighbourhood and stop in at the local espresso dive to hear the local chatter, keep planning, keep riding, keep recalling why we have national parks and where your ancestors came from and why our mutual lands of Canada and America and so many other places are founded on diversity.
That we all fit in. That this is a big place, that it invites big ideas, holds dreams in its mountains and rivers and pastures. Running is just as much politic as it is art and athletics, use it.
Call for Comments (from Meghan)
- Does running compel you toward a sense of guardianship over the places you run?
- What tangible, specific things can you as a runner and human being do to be a guardian to your local natural landscapes?
