Strikingly, the week of April 14-20 is one that we do not think of in connection to events as vivid as 9/11, however this week marks the events in Boston, the Oklahoma City Bombing (4/19), the Waco tragedy (4/19), the Columbine shooting (4/20), and the Virginia Tech horrific shooting (4/16). While these are isolated incidents, most occurred in places that represent or oppose federal government or strike at an area where places attempt to help others (Boston being a charity event and the schools being places where higher learning attempts to help the next generation). That very fact is enough to will us to continue to gather, enjoy, and go on living the best life we can imagine each and every day.
The greatest thing about our nation is that we are resilient and tough beyond what the terrorists (foreign and domestic) could ever dream. Hurricanes Sandy and Katrina taught us that most of the good will and support needed in our toughest times happen amongst and because of ordinary heroes, citizens, volunteers, and first responders that make up this countries backbone. When 9/11 happened, the Tri-state and nation as a whole was one unified country like we had never witnessed before in my lifetime. In the aftermath of 9/11, Boston players took the field wearing FDNY and NYPD hats in a show of solidarity and hope to move forward. Sports can do that ... make bitter rivals respect and stand behind one another at a tough time. That is why this Saturday, thousands of other runners and I will still line up on a starting line (my race is in Asbury Park) to boldy say ... we remember, but you won't stop us from living, running, and supporting one another. This was the wrong community to attack, if you can run 26.2 miles when everything in your brain tells you STOP ... you are not afraid of much and don't think anything can stop you. I for one, with my running clubs Fred's Team and Old Bridge Running Club, will be on that starting line (wearing for the first time in my life a Boston Hat as a tip of the cap to the 9/11 honor those hated Red Sox showed) thinking of those in Boston and honoring them the way we should ... by continuing to move forward and cross finish lines.
Below is my original (not good, but relaxing) writing from Columbia ... Why We Run
This day will begin or end like a lot of others, with a stress relief that makes no sense to those who don't also subscribe to the same form of therapy. My new hobby, running marathons and half marathons is not most peoples idea of relaxing. But it is the simple things running can offer you that make this such a great sport to participate in. The sounds are what usually gets you into a relaxed mood before a long run, especially in the morning. There is a quietness to race morning or long training runs that you don't always get in Jersey, almost like the sound is turned off for a few minutes while you mentally argue with yourself, "No, don't go back to bed or chill, you have to put in the miles." This goes on longer some days than others and I would be lying if I said that bed or procrastinating didn't win sometimes. But then something changes. You get the feeling that you need to run. Sometimes it is because of stress and you just need an outlet, other times you feel like if you don't your waistline will continue to expand until you are a perfect square. But the moment hits you, you hit play on your ipod, and you are out the door running. Running for exercise; running for fun; running for stress relief; running but hating it; but you are running and that's what matters and the other stress disappears for a little while. I'm not thinking about the stress of running a school when politicians attack it no matter how hard the teachers and I work and not thinking about the stress of social or family commitments. For a little while, it goes away and I'm just running. That little cloud around my head protecting me from stress is what runners live for.
I rarely pick my routes, allowing my feet and mind to take me wherever they want to go. At the beginning of every run there is always either excitement for a race or agony that you are running again. Hard to describe, but most runners have a love-hate relationship with running. There is no in between. After a few minutes of running, the brain starts to focus. Time to enjoy the scenery, think of the positives of exercise giving myself a little mental pat on the back, and why I run in the first place ... to raise funds for charity and challenge myself. My mile 2 you start to feel good and challenge yourself to run harder. This for me is usually achieved by focusing on the feeling crossing a finish line, handing a check to a charity, or by the fear of watching my classmates that I used to play sports with in high school and college grow horizontally and not wanting to face the same fate. This thought is usually reinforced by the slight jiggle in the mid-section I feel on hills or running corners almost if to remind me if I ran harder or more frequently I might be in better shape! As you get to mile 3 or 4 on a longer run your mind starts bringing images of the positive race experiences you have been a part of. One of my favorite images to think of is mental picture you get coming out of the tunnel facing the Freedom Tower while running the Tunnel to Towers race from Brooklyn to Ground Zero. As you come out of the tunnel, the probationary fire fighters are lined up on both sides holding picture of those lost in 9/11 and American flags ... 343 of them.
The picture of these brave people cheering on those runners who are raising funds for the FDNY charities and the Wounded Warrior project is moving beyond words. I also think of the veterans missing limbs who run on prosthetics during the Tough Mudders, the cancer survivors who run the NYC races with Fred's Team to raise funds for Sloan Kettering, and the countless older runners who continue to defy time because they are choosing to live and make the rest of us feel bad as they pass us. These images once seen, cannot be unseen. The first long race that you spend with people of this caliber and challenge yourself to do something you never thought was possible is a life changing event. I finished the NJ marathon in 2009, challenging myself to complete the 26.2 mile course and train for the event never having run more than 2-3 miles for sports practice before I was in my mid-20's. Now in my 30's I would decide that I would run over 10 times further ... was I crazy? In retrospect, it was one of the best decisions of my life right up there with going into education and proposing to my wife ... these are the three events I truly believe changed my life from a reckless idiot to someone who at least tries to be a better person. The person who started that NJ marathon race is not the same one who finished the race. Just two weeks after completing that race I went in to interview for a vice principals position. Armed with the confidence and thoughts that just a few months before the race I made a commitment to do what I thought I could never do, I walked in and won the job by showing how I felt no matter how daunting the job of reaching kids who are in an at risk situation ... I could do it. That sense of belief is something that can only be achieved when you truly pushed yourself to the limits ... I got my belief from running.
I glance at the ipod or the race mile marker the same way a second grader or high school student looks at the clock on the wall during a lecture that seems to go on for days. For the first time, the voice that all of us here creeps in ... "Ugh ... its only the fourth mile? How can that be ... I have 22 to go? Aaahh shit." Depending on the race or the day, this can also be the beginning of the physical games your body plays with you when you challenge yourself to run a marathon or half marathon. My nemesis can either be the shin that I broke a few years ago running in the Bronx marathon or the right knee that always used to bark during soccer or baseball for apparently no reason since I never remember injuring it. The shin is a particular source of idiocy and/or pride. The doctor at the time told me my shin split two inches vertically in the middle (which makes a really cool nuclear bone scan picture by the way) and it was most likely a small stress fracture before the race. Running through pain, a few years into running and a few years wiser is stupid, is something we all do. However, being told you ran a half marathon on the hills of the Bronx with a broken shin and you STILL didn't give up also gives you the same kind of rush that the challenge did in the first place ... I can do anything I set my mind to.
That feeling ... "I can do this" is needed again and again to do anything of importance in life whether it is finishing a marathon, parenting or teaching a kid who drives you crazy, or getting through a tough situation in life or school. On a long run, refocusing and thinking about these things rotate constantly in your head. On my run, after thinking about these things, I look up again and a few more miles have ticked off. I refocus and start playing the mind games we all play with ourselves when we need a boost. "At mile ten ... I'll slow down and get a Gatorade and check my time". The pain that shows up and the voices that say you should just quit are ever present in a distance race (at least for bad habit having commoners who run them like me). This was the first wall. There will be many more. Over the months of training the walls get easier to climb over because you get used to pushing yourself past obstacles. This is another central skill distance runners acquire that benefits us in life ... the ability to keep going when things get rough. I also have the added bonus of a positive voice in my head that always beats the negative naysayer voice. It is my dads voice. He coached me for so many years in so many sports that hearing him running when my mind is the most clear can actually make me feel as though I am having a live conversation with him. He once told me, when I was complaining about something insignificant that happened with bosses at work during a golf round, "Scot, walls aren't put up to stop you ... they exist to separate you from those who quit easily and to get them out of your way". Thinking of this guidance, not unlike a thousand other sayings he told me, pushes me further and makes me run harder.
This year, (written in the summer of 2012) I am running with a whole new sense of purpose. Getting up for training runs has been something I now look forward to. This year it is fitting that the voice that I hear in my head urging to go forward is that of my dad because I have been running on Fred's Team for Memorial Sloan Kettering Hospital in NYC to raise funds for the types of rare cancers that eventually silenced the actual voice of the person who coached me through all those seasons of my youth. Dad lost his battle on January 9, 2012 after an amazing display of strength, courage, and dedication to make an impact on everyone he met with the hope that he would beat the dreaded disease that takes too many of our loved ones. One of the things that was critical to my father was to ensure that through the drug trials, testing, and now fund raising that his battle "meant something" and would help beat this dreaded disease. I think about why I run these races and why crossing the line at the NYC marathon is so important to me. This, running each day to complete the race with the eventual goal of inspiring others to help me raise money is my way to continue my dad's battle against cancer and ensure that Dad completes his last "project". On this run I think about his last few weeks. As we visited Virginia to see family and friends and he played the most courageous 36 holes in golf history in Myrtle Beach only about a month before his passing, all he was concerned about was making trips to tell people what they meant to him and how proud he was of his family, friends, and former co-workers. When I run and raise money, I think about his self-less attitude before, during and after he was sick a lot. I know I miss him tremendously, but as I run I feel connected to his mission and the loss feels more empowering to try to get others to help me donate to help complete his final mission. Again, to a non-runner, it may be difficult to understand why one would want to run 26.2 miles for any reason ... but I ask, if that was the time that you felt the most connected to those who have mattered the most to us and those we've lost ... the question isn't "how could you possibly like running" ... the question is really how can you not enjoy completing races, running with other people on a mission, and to hear your dads coaching again.
Wonderful thoughts like that drift in and out as you run ... I would be lying though if I said that is what you think about for 3-4 hours (Again ... I'm not Kenyan). My next thoughts come around the ten mile mark usually. Ten miles ... saying sounds long to recreation runners and sounds like a plane ride to those who hate running. When you are at the ten mile mark you still have another ten miles and a ten kilometer race left. That is a cold fact that has hit me on many runs. This to me is the area that you make the decision to fight ... this is the angry stage of the run. I start thinking about doubters. The ones who said you can't run that far. I look a little deeper for inspiration, convinced that the voice telling me you can keep going sounds a lot like the teacher in high school who flatly told me that I wasn't going to college or amount to anything. I think that not only is their voice making me run harder, but I really wish that I could go back in time and have that teacher transferred to my school to be evaluated on how he "motivated" his students. Armed with the anger from those who say I couldn't make a difference and the thoughts of my dad fighting no matter what the odds ... I run on.
The miles don't seem as rough with a little perspective. The next ten to thirteen miles rotate between the thoughts in the above paragraphs ... excitement, doubt, anger, perseverance. The final wall comes usually closest to the finish in the last few miles. The pain picks up because your body seems to know you are getting closer to a couch or an ice bath. The voice gets a little louder to quit or sit because pain and fatigue can be an amplifier. But then something happens that cant be described, the final wall starts to erode and you start to picture yourself crossing the finish line. You realize that you didn't train for months, get up when you wanted to sleep, and keep going through injury to stop this close to your goal. You start to think that you will achieve this mission, which for me is to continue my dads battle and make some small dent in the battle against something that seems insurmountable. Finally, the finish line is in sight. There is really nothing like the end of a long race. I always get the feeling that I look a little like Kurt Gibson hobbling awkwardly to the end but feeling like I won the race (even though the Kenyans finished so long ago it can barely qualify as the same race). Crossing the line with the feeling that you have done something that just a few months ago seemed impossible does something for your spirit that cannot be described. It is a sense of validation, kinship with the thousands of runners who will also finish and have amazing stories of their own, and a profound sense that if this can be achieved by a lazy non-runner anything is possible.
And that's really the beauty of the sport, the recreational runners run the same course and get the same joy and sense of fulfillment that the winners do. Baseball doesn't allow beer league softball players to play a warm up game before the world series nor does basketball let guys from the local park play horse before the NBA finals. That is why runners run ... the challenge, sportsmanship, and feeling that anyone can do something amazing. As I mentioned, I run for cancer research. I get down sometimes looking at my fund raising page and thinking ... "I can only raise $3,000 bucks? What will that do to cancer?" However, it is then that I think of that same 30 something that got up off the couch and said, "I'm going to run a marathon". That's the thing I love most about racing ... I got to have my movie ending. I finished the race, got the job, and recently completed my 15th distance race pushing my fund raising total to over 10,000 for various charities. Sure, to beat cancer seems insurmountable some days ... but so did that race goal we all set for the first time ... and any runner will tell you how that story ended.
Post Scipt - the ING NYC marathon on Nov 3, 2013 will be my 25th distance race. I still hate running, but as long as I hear my dad on my runs and cancer still exists ... I will keep running. If you'd like to donate to my run this year, please click below:
http://mskcc.convio.net/site/TR/FredsTeamEvents/Freds_Team?px=2066084&pg=personal&fr_id=1930
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