My fiancee and I had a fun weekend in the Bay Area, attending the wedding of some good friends and visiting my family's little ranch in the hills above Fremont. With classes to start next Monday, this was my last break for a while.
While up in Northern California, we did watch Olympics coverage. And on Sunday, I was anguished by what happened to Paula Radcliffe in the marathon. (I was delighted by the strong showing of local gal Deena Drossin Kastor; I've run in 10Ks with her, and spent the first twenty or thirty feet of the race alongside her. From then on, it was just a matter of watching her backside fade from sight).
My fellow Cliopatriarch Jonathan Dresner points me towards a discussion of "Running Madness" at Butterflies and Wheels. It's a good post, and there's some good discussion in the comments section as well. Here's an excerpt:
...the interesting thing from a philosophical, sociological point of view is that somehow moral judgements seem to infect how we view sporting feats. It isn't a character flaw to stop when you're about to collapse from heat exhuastion, it's sensible. When I was fairly serious about this running lark, I would train with people who were very serious. In their world, my comparative lack of seriousness was considered to be a moral flaw. They'd continually harp on about the fact that "I wasn't fulfilling my potential", etc. Well, newsflash guys, there isn't a moral requirement that we should fulfill our potentials; if people are happy with mediocrity, as I am, then let them be...
Bold emphasis is mine.
Coming from a runner, that's terribly refreshing. Lord knows, I have struggled with this very thing. In early April, I struggled through a mountain 50K, only to collapse at the end. I needed an IV to get back on my feet.
I've often finished races or long training runs while feeling ill. I've only once dropped out of a marathon, down in Long Beach in 2001. I walked off the course at mile 22, but I hadn't been feeling myself since mile 10. At the time, friends, family, and fellow runners assured me that I had done the sensible thing by not pushing myself through. A part of me, of course, believed them. But another part of me felt very much like a failure. That feeling of failure after the Long Beach marathon lasted longer than the feeling of elation I have had after successful marathons (like my 3:13 PR in Pittsburgh in 1999). It was the desire to avoid that sense of failure that led me to finish the San Gabriel Mountains 50K despite feeling absolutely wretched for the final three hours of the grueling race.
Runners do tend to be a moralistic lot. It's no accident that the only sports metaphor regularly employed in Scripture is that of "running the race"! For St. Paul, to not finish "the race" has fairly serious consequences! In Hebrews 12:1, the Apostle says:
Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.
In other words, to fail to finish the race is to succumb to sin. Surely no other athletes experience such theological pressure as do distance runners! (Nowhere in Old or New Testaments do I find references to beach volleyball, artistic gymnastics, or the 100m butterfly).
As running (or for many folks like Oprah, run-walking) marathons becomes increasingly popular, the marathon becomes increasingly imbued with both mythic and moral qualities that are not found in other sports. When I did my first marathon in 1998, I did it because (like most folks) "I wanted to prove to myself that I could do it." I hear that same phrase from virtually every first-time marathoner. Folks don't say things like that about tennis, golf, or badminton. Only endurance sports (marathoning chief among them) become tests of one's spirit, resolve, and yes, willingness to endure pain and hardship.
When a gymnast falls off a balance beam, we say "ooh, bad luck." When a marathoner fails to finish a race, we ask "why didn't she keep going?" Ask any runner who has done at least five marathons or ultras: we've all had days where everything started perfectly, we were well-trained and rested, and things inexplicably fell apart. But not being able to finish a race isn't seen as bad luck -- it's seen as succumbing to weakness. No wonder so many of us, professional and amateur alike, often push ourselves through despite the risk of serious injury. We all have within us (and for a Paula Radcliffe, outside of us) a "great cloud of witnesses", reminding us of the consequences of failing to finish!
Sometimes, though, it isn't mediocrity that leads us to "fail to live up to our potential". Sometimes, not living up to our potential is an act of love:
You see, I weigh twenty pounds more today than I did in 1999 or 2000, when I was at my fastest. I don't run the way I once did, with a single-minded obsessiveness. I don't know if I'll ever do a sub-3:15 marathon again, or another sub-40 10K (those were my benchmarks of success). My resting heart rate is unlikely to be 44 again, as it was during those years. Today, I do other things with the time I spent running: I volunteer. I blog. I lift weights. I spend time with my fiancee and my chinchilla. (I was always in the best shape when I was single, not surprisingly). I still work out five or six days a week, but I don't run the mileage (or do the track work) I once did. I am happier with a more balanced life -- but I am still haunted by that voice that tells me, as the friends of the blogger above put it, that I'm not "fulfilling my potential."
I've got places on my body that are softer than they were five years ago. (I was regularly hovering around 4.5% body fat in those days, and believe me, I was tested monthly!) Some of that softness is a result of aging. Some of it is a result of my incurable sweet tooth. (I am a lover of Cadbury Cream Eggs.) But some of it is a result of choosing to give more to others and spend less time sculpting my figure for my own gratification. I long to be a father, as any reader of this blog knows. I expect that I will become one (to someone other than Matilde) in the next couple of years. And I know my future son or daughter would rather have a father who is present, available, and possessed of a roll around the middle than a preoccupied and distant father who has nary an ounce of fat upon his frame and a resting heart rate lower than his age.
For me, and I can't be alone in this, being willing to have an "average" body is a sacrifice of love. Being willing to not continue in order to preserve my health for the sake of those who need me is a similar sacrifice. Sometimes, the "cloud of witnesses" want you to stop running, take a shower, and "love on them" for a while. And though I expect and hope that there are plenty of marathons and ultras in my future, I am trying to remember to keep this most theologically and spiritually significant of athletic pursuits in its proper perspective.
"Ask any runner who has done at least five marathons or ultras: we've all had days where everything started perfectly, we were well-trained and rested, and things inexplicably fell apart. But not being able to finish a race isn't seen as bad luck -- it's seen as succumbing to weakness."
That is an interesting observation. I think it is related to the type of muscles involved. You are a gymnast in your youth, and you use your quick muscles. But you can still run 10 miles when you are 50. Things that happen in less than a second seem like matters of luck to us. Things that happen over the course of hours seem like acts of will to us.
Posted by: Lawrence Krubner | August 25, 2004 at 02:44 PM