My first run — I find myself gasping at the back of a tortured string of middle school cross country wannabes as the August sun bears down on the cracked pavement of Bridge Street. I had expected to be good at this, having built up visions of stardom in my head before I ever ran a step. Instead, I’m dead last and in more pain than I thought possible. At the end of four plodding miles, I catch up with the rest of the team back at the school. They commiserate about first run pains and we relish the sweat angels our backs paint on the warm asphalt. I smile.
It wasn’t long before the gasps subsided and the plod was replaced with a steady clip. I slowly moved up into the top pack of runners, but my dreams always surged far ahead. For no reason at all I believed I was destined to become the next big thing in running — the next high schooler to break the four-minute mile, the next Division I record holder, the next Olympian. Obsessed with taking things seriously, I pored over books and internet forums about training to carefully plan out the precise schedule of mileage and workouts that would make me a champion. In secret I was ruthlessly competitive with my high school teammates, tallying up how many times I beat Will or Joe in a race and vice versa, keeping score during workouts instead of simply running.
In addition to turning my training into a neurotic mess, my fantasies also made every race an unbearable ordeal. The night before each one I would visualize the success that was going to take place on the track the next day, knowing that if my dreams were going to come true I needed to do something spectacular. When it came time to warm up, I’d be nervous to the point of puking. Then I’d struggle through the race, gritting my teeth and berating myself all the while for not living up to the vision.
After each failure — which each race was, no matter how fast I ran — I’d crank up the Eminem on the bus ride home and start dreaming of the next one. But at some point you run out of nexts.
By the time I entered my sophomore year of college, it was clear that no miracles were coming, and my dreams slowly settled into the realm of reality before fading altogether. I’m not exactly sure when the change occurred — that’s always the way. Sudden realizations are for the movies — in real life these things sneak up on us, moment by moment, until we look around, startled to find it no longer matters who beat who or how fast the third rep of the workout was. On the start line, I’d see the tense jaws and nervous eyes and chuckle. Friends told me I was their favorite to cheer for because I smiled every time I heard them.
In a sport as bare as running, it’s easy to spot the absurdity — that life is about a whole lot more than who can run around a circle the fastest – but brushing the whole thing off as meaningless is just as much of a problem. It’s a matter of letting go and learning to take things seriously unserious. Only then can you begin to pick up on the more important things — the feeling of grass under your feet and wind in your hair, the feeling of laughing with your closest friends as you jog down a dirt road, the feeling of leaving the pre-race huddle with no nerves, no worries, just the pure rush of brotherhood that makes you want to run through a wall — feelings worth a whole lot more than any trophy.
But now, as I approach the next stage of my life – unheralded, unsung, and without a pair of spikes — I am starting over again. Perhaps what follows is more like that first run—a knock to the asphalt to jolt my head out of the clouds. Maybe I will have learned something for the second time around, something about my own limits, my own deceptions, my grasping, flailing self — to smile instead of grimace and look up instead of down. In life, as in running, it is too easy to get caught up with the pavement and the gravel at your feet, with the frantic start and the gasping finish. But sometimes when the pace slows, you can find time to laugh.
These lessons are likely a sham, my disillusionment too. Tomorrow I may forget it all — like I have so many times before — and start grinding my teeth again, tortured by a foolish, flimsy dream. I don’t know how long I’ll keep smiling, or how long the feeling of peaceful contentment will last. I don’t know if this is what I learned or just the story I tell myself. I don’t know if we ever learn anything at all. But I do know that on a hill outside of town you can watch the early morning sun warm the streets of Northfield. You can turn and crunch the gravel all the way down the long descent, and smile.
