It’s been a long time since I used to leap out of bed at the
sound of an alarm and head flying out the door, like Dagwood Bumstead, to my
job in an office.
Nowadays I only use the alarm on my phone to
wake me up for athletic events. The little tune it plays is an annoying way to
start a day – even a race day – but it gets me up and moving. I even have a
little verse that runs through my head to go with the music:
Time to rise and shine,
Get out of bed you lazy elf;
Time to toe the line,
That race won’t run itself.
On race morning I go through a predictable but real cycle of
emotions that remind me somewhat of the Kübler Ross stages of grief:
4:30 a.m. – Denial. WTF? It can’t possibly be time to get up. I just closed my eyes.
5:30 a.m. – Anger. Why did I pay money to sign up for this
stupid race that I’m not even properly trained for? I’m gonna have to drive for
hours to get there. Line up to park. Line up to get my number. Line up to pee.
Why couldn’t I just have gone for a nice run through the countryside on my own
time at a decent hour? I’m 66 years old for cry-yi. I can’t fake it like I used
to. Let the millennials do this.
6:30 a.m. – Bargaining. OK. If I just get through this one I
will never rashly enter another race again. I will be properly trained and I
will practise on the actual race course six times before the event. I will not
show up in old running shoes with half a sole flapping under my left foot. I
will dress properly for the weather and be neither chilled to the brisket nor
baked like a potato.
7:30 a.m. – Depression. As Eeyore said: All right. We’re
going. Only Don’t Blame Me if it Rains.
8:00 a.m. – Acceptance. Here I am running under the starting
banner. Hundreds of feet shuffling around me. For every two feet there is one
mind looking to the task ahead. Everything I have felt this morning falls away,
leaving nothing but my heart, my body, and my goal. For the past three and a
half hours I have been asking myself why I do this. As my legs begin to warm up
and carry me across the earth, I modify Yoda’s saying: there is no why – there is
only do.
Once again, for the hundredth or thousandth time since I
began all this over three decades ago, I am running to surprise myself. Whether
I have three, four, or eight hours of effort ahead, I’m content to let happen
whatever is going to happen.
All of these emotions were in play a few weeks ago as I ran an
out-and-back 26k trail event through a conservation area east of Toronto. There
were last minute changes to the course as a result of construction (the
distance was supposed to be 25k) and fallen trees due to extreme winds. The
number of river crossings was doubled from one to two.
Despite all this, it turned out to be a great day, with good
running weather and paths that were not as muddy as in some previous years. The
extra water crossing proved so popular that the organizers are considering making
it a permanent part of the race.
I am still running, and this always seems like a small
miracle to me. What began as a dare with my sedentary, chain-smoking self to
see if I could finish a 10k charity event back in 1985 has kept me challenged
and fulfilled in a way that I could never have expected. In a way that, if I’m
being honest, nothing else ever has.
Trotting along the forest floor about midway
through the race I decided I had to add one more stage to the list of emotions:
10:00 a.m. – Gratitude.
