Let’s pretend a smooth asphalt road completely
encircles the earth and follows the exact path of the equator. Now imagine my home in Peachtree City,
Georgia is located on that road (it’s
not, but we’re pretending, remember?).
Now pretend I left my house for a run heading east and
I ran every mile I’ve ever run in my life all at once without stopping.
If all of these things were true, then I would have
been running through Jhang, Pakistan this year on the last day of May.
Actually, if I never strayed from that imaginary path
on the equator I would have been running through Jhang for the sixth time, as that was the day I ran my
135,000th lifetime mile.
As you may have already gathered I have kept pretty
diligent records of my running for the past 35+ years. My running logs have at least one entry every
single day since November 30, 1978. The
last day I failed to run—November 29, 1978—was due to an unfortunate problem
with my stomach caused by something I inflicted on myself the day before. It could have been one of two things: (1)
Running 13 miles to win a bet with my college professor who knew the longest
distance I ever ran was only eight miles, or (2) drinking a couple of
celebratory pitchers of beer afterwards, complements of my college professor
paying off his lost wager. Now that I
think about it, it was probably a little bit of both.
I’ve been a slave to numbers for as long as I can
remember. I have always set mileage
goals for myself: Weekly, monthly and yearly.
In my prime if I set a goal of running 90 miles in a week, I would ‘load
up’ on the front end of the week to ensure that by the time the week was
drawing to a close I would be assured of reaching my target. Inevitably this led to weeks of 100 or more
miles because I would usually finish the week the same way it started: With high
mileage. (You can imagine the results
when this philosophy is extended into months and years of running. That being said 135,000 miles in 35 years should
really come as no surprise.)
As for being a slave to numbers, I have historically
tried to tie in ‘milestone mileage’ plateaus with something of significance in
my running career. For instance I
reached 100,000 lifetime miles as I crossed the finish line of the 2005 Atlanta
Marathon (one of my favorite races) and 125,000 miles on the 50-yard line of
Florida Field in 2011 amidst a welcoming entourage consisting of my wife, the
University of Florida cheerleaders and what-Gator-celebration-would-be-without school
mascots Albert and Alberta Alligator.
So I meticulously planned my week leading up to the
culmination of running my 135,000th mile as I wanted it to be at the
exact same spot where one week earlier Al, Amanda and I found six abandoned
kittens on the side of the road. It
required a 20-mile run on Monday and a total of 41 miles the rest of the week,
but it was well worth the effort. When
Al, Amanda and I reached the nine-mile mark of our 10-mile Saturday morning
run, we stopped to let the moment soak in.
One hundred and thirty-five thousand miles. The adoption of all six kittens less than a
week ago. Another exhilarating,
never-taken-for-granted run in the country.
Good health. Camraderie. Physical fitness. Friendship.
The simplicity and purity of running.
The moment was special for a lot of reasons. It made me think of all the other special
moments in my life, all of which I could affix a number to if I had the urge (that number being my lifetime running
mileage at that point in time):
· The day Cindy and I moved from Florida to
Georgia.
· The births of both of our sons.
· The deaths of Cindy’s parents.
· The deaths of my parents.
· The birth of our grandson.
· The day we moved into our new house in Peachtree City.
· The days both of our sons graduated from high school
and for one of them, college.
· The day I said goodbye to a company I was with for 24
years.
· The day I said hello to a company I have been with
ever since.
But assigning a number to these moments would be the
wrong thing to do. You can’t put a
number, any number—whether it be mileage,
value or importance on a scale of one-to-ten—on the moments that define your
life.
With that thought in mind I’m going to try my very
best to quit placing numerical goals on myself.
Lord knows I’ve tried cutting back on my mileage over the years but I’ll
be the first to tell you the success has been negligible. If whether or not I’ve been successful at
‘cutting back’ was up for debate, a novice debater might argue I have indeed
been running fewer miles the past couple of years and therefore have
successfully ‘cut back.’ However, a
veteran debater might concede I’m running fewer miles but that I’m still
spending as much time on the roads since I’m running considerably slower than
in years past and therefore have not technically ‘cut back.’
However, a master
debater could bring the whole matter to an abrupt close by pointing out the
obvious: Successfully ‘cutting back’ requires less mileage AND less time spent
running. (Note: There is no such thing as a ‘master debater.’ I just wanted to use it in print to see if it
was as much fun reading it as it was hearing it said out loud. Note to note: It’s not.)
So today I vow to quit placing mileage goals on
myself. I don’t need the stress, the
pressure or the demand of running X miles each week, each month or each
year.
As long as I can run my 150,000th lifetime
mile by the time I turn 65…
Postscript: The evening of May 31st Cindy
and I attended a Collective Soul concert.
The encore consisted of two songs: Shine
followed by the finale Run. You may be familiar with the last line of the
song, which is repeated several times before the song comes to an end:
Have I got a
long way to run?
Karma can be a bitch.
Or perhaps my ally. Sometimes
it’s hard to tell.
It’s up for debate.
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