Remember how miserable I felt running my five marathons at age 12? Remember the misery of the first one, the Hidden Valley marathon, which took me four hours and 43 minutes and I was almost beaten by that 70-plus year old woman, Mavis Lindgren? It was hot and far and the terrain was unfamiliar and I hardly knew anyone and I ended up walking much of the last half of the race.
It was easy to cheat in my training and to tell myself I ran ten miles when really it was only seven, but there was no way to cheat in an official race. The race was laid out. It was just over 13 miles there and just over 13 miles back and that was all there was to it. There was no way to cheat.
Remember the rain, fog and cold of my second marathon, the Avenue of the Giants? We had to drive down there Saturday night, sleep in a strange place, and then race in the morning and make the long drive home.
Remember the killer hills of the San Francisco marathon? One mile, it was about mile 22, was uphill all the way. Remember running across the Bay Bridge and the Golden Gate Bridge? I’ve never felt so close to suicide. I just wanted to jump into the cold blue waters. Remember how much a kind word meant to me then? And now.
I was miserable because I was doing the thing that I hoped would make me great and it hurt so much and I hated it and I wasn’t particularly good at it, there was no way I was ever going to be great in running, and yet I kept slogging away for the attention. I felt trapped.
How many times in my life have I done this? I’ve sacrificed everything to be great at one thing only to find that I hate it and I’m not particularly good at it. It’s not what I expected. Where’s my runner’s high? Where are the endorphins?
So when did I have a better time running my marathons? I got my best time at the Sri Chinmoy race which I had to enter with another runner’s number because the marathon didn’t allow kids. I finished in four hours and 14 minutes and at the end, Sri Chimnoy was screaming the name of the female runner registered in my name, encouraging me on (he did that for every runner). I liked that they had water stations on every mile and the race was flat and there was lots of encouragement.
My favorite marathon was the Napa Valley marathon, near my home town. Many of my friends turned out to cheer. My classmate Lonnie sherman biked beside me the last eight miles of the race, offering kind words. I finished hard, with a long wild sprint to the line that got captured in a movie about the race.
Osgood-Schlatter’s disease ended my running at age 12. I didn’t pick it up again until 18 and then only periodically. I never particularly liked running but I liked it most when I did it around people I liked, and that was mainly at Pacific Union College (PUC), my home from 1977-1980 as well as the summers of 1982 and 1983. As I ran up and down the hills of PUC, people would call out to me. I liked that. It made me feel connected. Human connection is what life is all about and what I’ve missed most in my first 47 years. My memories of PUC are so filled with emotion. Compared to PUC, my years in Auburn (1980-1993) were dry and barren.
Just take the scenery of PUC compared to Auburn. PUC is much greener and moister. Auburn is hot and dry all summer and the grass dies and my soul withers outside the bosom of the Seventh-Day Adventist church (my family lived in Adventist colleges (Avondale and PUC) until I was 14).
I returned to running in my final year at Sierra Community College. In the fall of 1987, while taking 18-units and getting straight As, I ran a couple of times a week along a dusty trail. Then I’d finish off my work-out with 20 pull-ups and I looked forward to transferring to UCLA, where my life would truly begin. There I would shine and my talents would be recognized. I’d recapture the human connection I had at PUC but it wouldn’t be based on shared religion but on shared academic excellence.
* I have the day off so I’m lying down, listening to my favorite music, and imagining myself going for a long jog, just like I did as a kid, and then writing out what comes up.
There’s definitely a big physiological and emotional reaction going on inside of me when I visualize myself running, doing pull-ups, working out, charging down the streets of my youth. I’m going to put more effort into learning about and using visualization. I can sense its power. Now I have to get disciplined and use it every day towards good ends.
