Thursday, August 22, 2013

Cascade Crest 100 Pre-Race

Camaraderie & Community 
Parents are coming out to crew. Luke is pacing. Friends are coming up to the race start to see me off. I'm humbled and grateful for having all that I have.

LOTS of people in the ultra community are coming out for this race. Some volunteer at aid stations. Some crew. Some pace. Some can't make it, but they follow online, post on Facebook, text, e-mail, or call with words of encouragement. The camaraderie that surrounds this sport is just amazing. We all feed off each others energy. In this sport, as in life.

Introspection
Why am I doing this? Am I running from something? Am I running to something? Am I going to run the rest of my life? Am I going to discover something I never knew about myself? Am I going to finish? Am I going to eat right? Am I going to fall down and die? Am I going to get stung by bees, again? 

This type of thinking could go on forever. Though, eventually, we need to commit to doing something. That commitment should be our own. A commitment that we fully appreciate and believe in. A commitment where we are willing to deal with the inevitable ebb and flow. 

Maybe that commitment is starting a family, or beginning a career. Maybe it's a commitment to eliminate something harmful from our lives. Maybe it's a commitment to change something, from where we live, to who we are.

This run is my commitment. My commitments are born from dreams. These dreams never seem to reveal themselves in the ways I envision. They often collide in violent fashion with reality, producing an indistinct version of how they started. So, I adjust them, smile, and dream again. I wouldn't have it any other way.


P.S. I'm ready to run 100 freaking miles. 
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1 comment:

  1. LukeDAugust 22, 2013 at 6:24 PM

    "Perhaps the genius of ultrarunning is its supreme lack of utility. It makes no sense in a world of space ships and supercomputers to run vast distances on foot. There is no money in it and no fame, frequently not even the approval of peers. But as poets, apostles and philosophers have insisted from the dawn of time, there is more to life than logic and common sense. The ultrarunners know this instinctively. And they know something else that is lost on the sedentary. They understand, perhaps better than anyone, that the doors to the spirit will swing open with physical effort. In running such long and taxing distances they answer a call from the deepest realms of their being -- a call that asks who they are ..."

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