I’m signed up to run the JFK 50 mile race this November 19th. I’ve run a bunch of marathons and I’m pretty much physically done at the end of them. This is almost twice as far.
It’s a pointless exercise, really. There’s no real reason to run 50 miles other than to run 50 miles.
I made this pointless decision about 7 months ago, when a lot of things were happening in my life that were scary and unpleasant and uncertain. I think this is my way of asserting control. I will make meaningless commitments, and follow through on them. By doing something meaningless, not particularly smart and very difficult I will somehow assert dominance and control over my life. By doing so, in this one aspect, it will overflow and I will once again be in control.
In order to run this race, I have been taking extremely long training runs. I will wake up at 4am or 4:30, drive to the rails to trails (for example,) put on my ipod and my Camelback and disapear into the woods for 3,4,5 hours covering 15, 20, or 30 miles by myself.
It’s amazing the gamut of things that go through your head as you go from drowsiness to exilhiration, to exhaustion, to despair, to a grim resolve, to a failure of resolve, and finally to simply being, beyond effort, beyond exhaustion, apathetic to suffering.
There is beauty and there is ugliness and they are often intertwined. While not paying attention I slipped on a dead possom. He had been dead for a while and he liquefied inside and burst when I stepped on him and I slid and fell on my back. It stunk horribly and hurt, and I lay there on my back with a coating of dead possum slime on my legs, ass and back, staring up at the sky, heart pounding, covered with sweat. Furious with frustration there were tears in my eyes, but it was also funny, and I realized what a beautiful and rare moment this was. “Most people are never privileged enough to lay on their back at 6am in the middle of a deserted trail, having run fifteen miles, covered with dead possom, while contemplating their place in the world and staring as dawns rosy tendrils (as Homer puts it) color the first light,” I think.
Lucky me. I mean it.
Other things happen to, as you go out there into nature, into miles and resolve, before the rest of the world wakes. Exhaustion and effort break down barriers and the solitude and suffering of exertion turn the mind inward and outward and reality shifts.
Sometimes your ipod stops playing music and starts talking to you. I’ve read enough psychology to know that the voices in your head aren’t necessarily on your side, but it’s interesting. Sometimes you meet people, that aren’t there in consensus reality. You are free to meet them because at 6 am after twenty miles or so, in the deep woods… you are far away from consensus reality.
It is pointless but therein lies its strength. Some people beleive that you are what you do when it matters. They spend there life waiting for something that matters, or they search it out. Sometimes they meet up with it. It’s a moot point. As far as I can tell, everybody does their best when it really matters, when it’s life or death or the stakes are sufficiently high.
The true test of character, I think, is what you do when it matters not at all. There is no need. Only character fills the void.
And, I eat a lot of bugs, too. The fall has these tiny little gnats that swarm. They are so fragile and tiny that just running through them kills them. I’m only running 8 minute miles yet the collision leaves them dead on my face or on my arms. Sometimes you inhale them and they taste bitter.
I know reality shifts. Last June I bought (or thought I bought) a new Mustang Convertible. It seemed like a sweet car, but right away it had all these issues. The interior was cheap, it had issues with gas. It made weird noises. It shifted badly. The computer busted. It was in the shop 5 times this summer.
While running for several hours my mind turned to this car, and I thought about what a mistake it was. I had had the opportunity to buy this nice used Subaru from a guy who was into tuning. It was a very nice Impreza WRX wagon with all kinds of new features and aftermarket parts to zip it up, but it still looked stock. I lamented not buying it.
When I came back from my run, the Mustang was gone from the parking lot, and there was the Subaru. It was like that Ashton Kutcher movie where he travels through time and changes things. Suddenly I had all the memories. I had passed on the Mustang. I did by the Subaru. Reality had changed. Or maybe it was just the delirium daydream of the physical effort of the run.
Does it really matter?
So, I’m not sure what is true. I’m not sure what happens on my runs. More importantly I’m sure I’ll take poetic license to whatever degree I feel like and simply make things up. You can judge what is true or not.
I intend to write about the mystical experiences of my training runs, and what I encounter and how the training goes and I guess it’ll all end on November 19th when I run the race.
The story really begins in August, though. That is when I got serious about the long runs. That’s also when I kept the other part of the promise I made to myself. I was going to ride a bull.
I guess this idea came from that stupid song “I went sky diving, mountain rocky climbing, I went 2.7 seconds on a bull named Fu Manchu…”
Hey, I can do that! That’ll be a defining experience. I’ve been a cowboy at a dude ranch. I’ve trained horses.
I paid my entrance fee, got a tutorial, signed disclaimers and I was entered.
The bull’s name wasn’t “Fu manchu,” though. It was “Tibia.”
“He breaks a lot of Tibia’s” I was told.
As I stared at Tibia’s acres of anatomy, I couldn’t help but notice how little it resembled that of a horse.
The night before I had cut quite a figure in my worn jeans, chaps, denim shirt, and frayed straw cowbody hat. I exuded confidence and rugged capability.
Tibia had not been there, and was not as impressed with me.
There were three chutes. They had just loaded Tibia in his chute. Two other bulls and riders were preparing to go, than me. An hour before, in the dressing room I had met Fred.
“Hi, I’m Fred,” said Fred. “I’ll be your clown.”
Fred had clown makeup and body armor. His wrist was in a cast.
“Do whatever I say. Don’t try to climb the fence if the bull is focussed on you. Once you fall off keep moving. Don’t freeze.”
Fred patted me on the back.
Fred’s face didn’t look like clown makeup. It looked like Mime make up. I didn’t like Mimes. They kind of scared me. Clowns too, but Mimes moreso.
Standing there by Tibia I had a bad feeling.
“I went sky-diving…” I started singing to myself and kind of stopped.
I mount Tibia and he doesn’t seem to notice or care. I am handed a rope that goes around the bull and pisses him off, but which I will hang onto. It is supposed to be nice and tight. I keep remembering those guys that get stuck on the bull, and make it kind of loose.
I’m being given all kinds of instructions that I can’t seem to listen to. I’m in shock. I’m in shock that I’m actually being allowed to do this. I have no clue. I have received virtually no instruction. All I had to do was pay my fee and talk to a clown.
Unreal.
The second bull goes. The guy falls off with a liquid crunch, tries to run, but the bull beats him up for a while before the clown gets him out of there.
Now it’s my turn. I’m supposed to say “OK, Ok” “Ok Ok” as my signal to release the bull.
What comes out is “Bo bo, bobalo” or something.
The gate opens and the bull leaps out.
My eyes catch those of my friends (Family stayed home) here to support me.
Things happen.
These things involve physics and momentum and I’m not to clear on them. I eat dirt. I get up and the bull runs me over again, or punts me or something. I’m not to clear on it.
This clown is there and he screws with bull and pisses it off.
I climb over a fence and at the top of the fence there are ten sets of hands to lift me over, to grab me, to hold me. They are all my brothers and they pull me to safety and it is incredible sensation, like being loved. They stand me up and look at me.
“You ok?” A thousand times it is asked. I nod dumbly, and then I suddenly grin, and they all grin back.
I am ok! I spit blood from a split lip. My nose is bleeding. I’m ok.
It’s a beautiful moment. Singular.
It’s like staring at dawns rosy tendrils while laying on my back on a trail covered in dead possum.
