Inspiration

We've had a tough emotional week this week, with Mommy being away to train and Alex's next MRI (next week) hanging over our heads, and at times I loose sight of my goals, my reasons for racing and training, and even the things that I love most in the world turn to chores. I picked up a book for my trip last week and highly recommend it to anyone needing some end of season inspiration.

The book, Going Long: Legends, Oddballs, Comebacks & Adventures, The Best Stories from Runner's World has some awesome stories in it. There are two passages that were so beautifully written, I am adding them here.

From Benjamin Cheever (son of my dad's favorite author, John Cheever), about training and completing his first marathon:

"Joy changes the landscape. My old life began to loosen around me like somebody else's shell. I felt naked, exposed. I had flashes of ecstasy, but pain was also more available to me. Not just physical pain either. I was swept with waves of remorse. And, alarmingly, I also felt the stirrings of ambition. I'd stumbled into an arena where I could go all-out, holding nothing back, and nobody--nobody--could be injured or even threatened...Life is a miraculous undertaking if you're paying attention."

And then a quote from Olympic marathoner Don Kardong on running his first 50 miler, Le Grizz. He is about to start the race (which he will win in under 6 hours, incredibly) and he looks around at the other lean bodies around him, shivering in the cold, dark morning. "Above them, the eye of the moon blasted its icy light across the wilderness, promising nothing but indifference of Nature to human dreams."

And then another quote, somewhere around mile 45 as he remembers the advice of a friend, "It never always gets worse. Eventually something will get better."

"Perhaps the attraction of ultrarunning lies in the simple distillation of this: the ability to envision a distant goal--another time and place when things will be better--and to survive the worst until then. This vision embraces both the survival instinct that unites us to other creatures and the imagination and willpower that catapults us above them. 'I will make it,' says the determined mind, and the body grows convinced."

We will get through Alex's MRI. Last year, the annual MRI revealed to us that he had to have another major brain surgery. This year, we hope for better news. But no matter what, we will get through it all. I envision a distant time where things will be better. After the Louisville Ironman (and Hawaii? one can only hope...), there will be a 50k and then a 50 miler...there will be lots of time to ponder upon Nature's indifference to human dreams, and to fulfill those dreams regardless.