While lacking experience with mountaineering, I can boast a childhood filled with bare-foot running along sage-lined paths in the foothills of Boise, Idaho. In the fringes of that city les bois, while traversing the molehills of elementary school, I earned a reputation for being a “runner” among my peers. Several successful races in the junior Olympics at primary school left me with a quiet suspicion I might be a champion someday. I progressed in those thoughts until puberty brought unwelcome magnitude to my thighs. Each pounding step on the track with my newly increased bone mass seemed to push my dream of being a runner increasingly underground. Subsequent efforts at running through grades 7, 8, and 9 culminated in me receiving the award of “best smile” by the cross-country coach. While my genetically twiggy running mates received medals and ribbons for city, region, and state races, I cheered for them from the sidelines, eating the pity prize my coach had given me—a cookie frosted in smiley-face fashion.
Finishing my last season of junior high school track, my awkward footing stumbled enough in the running world to convince me I should focus on developing alternative talents instead. For the next two years I persisted, focused, made goals and progressed, in music, academics, and friendships. Then came an autumn day of my senior year when I enlisted in the Army National Guard, a delayed entry program—and the issue of becoming a runner once again got scrawled on my to-do-list. With a mere nine months to prepare for Army basic training, I approached the high school track coach and agreed to follow his directions with abandon.
My personal journal of this time period changed in voice from musing teen to passionate athlete. I ate, breathed, and slept running. Notations each night before retiring to bed no longer centered on the usual diary entries of a seventeen-year-old girl. I wrote little of romance, family, or school, but instead documented fartlekking—interval training—mile times, workout patterns, and carefully tracked shin splint pain levels, as well as my alternate pool running experiences to keep fit during times of injury.
During races the following spring, my eyes learned to lock on the runner in front—no glances to the side, back, or anywhere but the foe ahead. I appreciated her for the times she might have worn a braid swinging rhythmically. I would match my pace to the swishing of her hair until eventually the hair grew near, even equal to me, and then my breathing body could pass her, eyes moving on to focus toward a new runner in front. The path in front always held runners faster than me, by the way, as my childhood vision of championship failed to materialize even in my most athletic of times.
Roger Bannister, first man to break the four-minute mile, used a similar method of pacing to the one I used, with two other runners racing on the track at varying intervals during his historic race. Any competitor, athlete or other, can attest to the power of a well-placed opponent. Having opposition brings focus, determination, and added joy in victory.
Finishing my last season of junior high school track, my awkward footing stumbled enough in the running world to convince me I should focus on developing alternative talents instead. For the next two years I persisted, focused, made goals and progressed, in music, academics, and friendships. Then came an autumn day of my senior year when I enlisted in the Army National Guard, a delayed entry program—and the issue of becoming a runner once again got scrawled on my to-do-list. With a mere nine months to prepare for Army basic training, I approached the high school track coach and agreed to follow his directions with abandon.
My personal journal of this time period changed in voice from musing teen to passionate athlete. I ate, breathed, and slept running. Notations each night before retiring to bed no longer centered on the usual diary entries of a seventeen-year-old girl. I wrote little of romance, family, or school, but instead documented fartlekking—interval training—mile times, workout patterns, and carefully tracked shin splint pain levels, as well as my alternate pool running experiences to keep fit during times of injury.
During races the following spring, my eyes learned to lock on the runner in front—no glances to the side, back, or anywhere but the foe ahead. I appreciated her for the times she might have worn a braid swinging rhythmically. I would match my pace to the swishing of her hair until eventually the hair grew near, even equal to me, and then my breathing body could pass her, eyes moving on to focus toward a new runner in front. The path in front always held runners faster than me, by the way, as my childhood vision of championship failed to materialize even in my most athletic of times.
Roger Bannister, first man to break the four-minute mile, used a similar method of pacing to the one I used, with two other runners racing on the track at varying intervals during his historic race. Any competitor, athlete or other, can attest to the power of a well-placed opponent. Having opposition brings focus, determination, and added joy in victory.
While my running schedule has changed since high school, and the nature of my physical form will continue to vary throughout my life, my race with Mortality shows consistency. This foe called Mortality brings an everpresent challenge to my journey, be it through illness, disappointment, or sin, and through its rigorous pacing provides a motive to keep moving forward. I understand the need for this opposition, because having a foe to beat pushes my aching limbs to stay rhythmic for one more step forward at a time, and then another. This race I run currently will proceed like all the others of my running career as I try to keep from looking side to side or back behind me and instead look ahead, always seeing one more opponent to pass—until one day the race will end. I will find in that moment, if I have endured the distance well, the opponents will all have fallen behind me for the first time. My childhood prediction of championship will seem to have come true--but then I will find myself wondering how it might feel to run with no foe ahead on which to lock my gaze. Then I will realize my pacing can emerge through the one who runs by my side, as God intends all who emerge victorious from the mortal race to have a companion for the duration of their journey through godhood.
1 comment:
I really like the "running" energy of this combination. It's as if the words are flowing by adrenalin. Will this become a David O. McKay essay? At any rate, I am pleased to see more of you in the wonder of words. Thank you for going beyond what is required.
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