On the Response to Adversity


My consistency in blogging bears no lack of similarity with my consistency in running.  I run much more than I blog, but I definitely spend more days, weeks, and months not running than running.  "Couch suck" seems to kick in on a regular basis.  My knee hurts...a little.  My foot hurts...a lot.  I sprained my back (being an idiot).  Work is too hard.  Family life is too busy.  It's too early.  It's too late. Every excuse seems valid at the time, every validation, however hollow, seems acceptable.

 Until yesterday.  Until bombs set by as-yet-unnamed terrorists blew two holes in the crowd of spectators at the Boston Marathon and blew a huge hole in the heart of the running community.  Blew a huge hole in my heart.

 I can't say that I have a personal connection to those killed or injured in the bombing or that I knew someone who was racing. Even if I had somehow been racing at Boston, my time would have been closer to 3:30 than the 4:09:49 displayed on the finish clock at the time of the bombing.  However, I wouldn't have been at Boston because I have not been able to qualify for Boston - my current PR for a marathon stands at 4:08:36. I know intimately what it feels like to be crossing the finish line after 4 hours of running.  I know the final minutes of misery, self-doubt, the effects of missed training runs making themselves apparent, the deals you make with yourself..."Keep running to that sign up there and then you can walk a bit."  What I don't know, what I can't possibly know, it what it would feel like to add a bomb explosion on top of that.  But that is now our reality.  Every race for the foreseeable future will have a nervous energy, every racer and every spectator will worry.

 Until yesterday, Boston Qualification was a bright, shining ideal for me.  Your average runner can't get into Boston.  Your above average runner might...might be able to qualify, but even after years of effort you might still come up a few minutes short.

 Let's be honest.  Look around at your office, your neighborhood coffee house, your church. None of those around you (or so close to almost none that its statistically the same) are going to qualify for the Olympics.  But some of those people might be able to qualify for Boston.  And maybe one of those people around you is me.  Maybe I could qualify for Boston.  I don't have any qualifiers to add after my name.  There is no "Dr." before my name, no MD, DDS, Esquire, CE, ASC to go after.  But if I qualified for Boston, I would mentally add that title to my name: "Todmund Cole, Boston Qualifier"  I don't think I would ever actually sign anything, "Todmund Cole, BQ", but I would be tempted.

 Until yesterday, it was an ideal that I fantasized about, but honestly did not do enough to make a reality.  Spurts of effort, graphs, projections, pace charts, poring over books to find a magic formula, to find a quiz you could fill out that would give you a definitive "yes, you can" or "no, you can't."  Some way to figure out if it was possible without actually just going out and crafting my body into the best running shape I could and then seeing if that was enough.

 And today?  I don't know.  My resolve certainly seems to be there.  Not trying to qualify for Boston feels like giving up, like giving in.  I'd like to show myself what I am capable of.  And suddenly complaints of a sore foot and not enough sleep seems incredibly shallow.  

 It's time to run.

Comments

  1. RosetimeApril 16, 2013 at 11:25 AM

    thanks for blogging this. So poignant that after watching all the news feeds yesterday and feeling so disheartened, so sad about the world we live in, I was finally able to cry.

    ReplyDelete

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