Soon I'm going for a run. It is now 80 degrees and the temperature will just keep inching up until it reaches unbearable.2. This is the time of year to be indoors, to crowd into the gyms and scurry madly on a conveyer belt, literally running your ass off and going nowhere. But I'll have none of it. It's the elements for me. It's smelling breakfast cooking, laundry being done, a trillion pine needles collected on the forest floor, the sweat of that guy that just passed me like I was standing still, fresh cut grass, wind, dirt, dog shit, coffeebrewing. There is no indoor equivalent. Only those willing to suffer the elements will be rewarded with the gift of being able to discern a winter morning from a summer, spring or fall morning by simply smelling it. It's true, cold air not only feels different, it smells different. When it's really cold, it smells like the inside of a refrigerator. When it's really hot, it smells like baking pine needles and heavy cream.
Peter Pan told Wendy to "think happy thoughts and you can fly". It's sound advice that applies to more than flying. Think happy thoughts and you can run...a really long way. Think unhappy thoughts and it's much harder to do anything. Halfway through a 50 Kilometer run through Huntsville state park, I was quitting. I couldn't imagine having it in me to do another lap. One fifteen mile lap was quite enough, thank you very much. So off I waddled toward my car...crying and feeling very sorry myself. "Hey! Where ya going?" I hear a voice calling and turned around to see aslender, grey haired man waving me over to him. "I'm quitting." I admitted. I don't remember the exact words, but basically he talked me into just making it to the next aid station and if I still felt like quitting, there would be someone there to bring me back to the starting line/halfwaypoint/finish line. He was probably lying about the ride back. Lying to a runner during a grueling trail run is not only okay, it's appreciated. After all, who wants to hear: "your face is all red and yourshorts are riding up."? That wouldn't motivate anyone. "You look great, you got this thing!" Now, that's motivating...completely delusional...but we slurp up these lies along with electrolyte laden beverages, wolf down orange slices and bits of banana and then return to the wild.
Oh, the beautiful and exalted volunteer. Tired runners have spilled more Gatorade on them than a coach might expect after winning the super bowl. And still they smile, lie profusely, make sure there are no flies (currently) on what I'm shoving in my mouth. They cast their practiced eye over a runner and set about tidying them up: they tie shoes, fill bottles, and help with anything that chubby fingers that stopped working miles ago can't seem to manage. They've opened gu packages for me, put my headphones back in my ear, even dug my cell phone out of my fanny pack so that I could call my cousin and get a much needed pep talk. They require no grand gestures of appreciation. Although I'm often gushing gratitude, unintelligible over the glob of peanut butter sticking my tongue to the roof of my mouth or enhanced by bits of goldfish cracker flying out of my mouth...they probably would prefer a (mouth closed) smile and nod.
So it's a safe bet that the volunteers would have talked me to the next aid station with a lie that only someone stupid from glucose deprivation would believe: "we can't get the truck out of here right now, it would be quicker for you to just go to the next one and have the four wheeler take you in..." and so it would have gone until I reached the last aid station, perhaps suspicious that I was being manipulated but probably too dim to get it, where I would have been informed: "you can do anything for five miles". Shamed into more forward motion, I would have finished. (quite against my will) But I didn't try to quit again, I sucked it up and grinded through the last fifteen miles without crying too much and I only talked to myself (out loud) a little.
This was not a run I could call "fun", but it was a journey of self discovery. Of Expansion. We all need to walk up to that clear membrane that bounces us back to the safety of the norm and we need to push on it with all our strength until it expands and we take on new real estate within ourselves.
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