Fear and Laziness

While my memories of a race are usually freshest within 24 hours of the event (hence the updates like clockwork), my reflections on the experience are usually deepest a few days afterwards. And in some cases, they don't really sink in until years later. This is one of those . . .

When I was doing my "massive" two-week buildup for Rocky Raccoon in 2009 (which, after a weak attempt at a 30+ mile run, consisted of a 20-mile long run, and 800-meter intervals every other day), I was cooling down in Mount Vernon (Baltimore) after one of my silly 800-meter interval sessions when I saw, spray-painted on the side of a truck: "The only things preventing anybody from doing anything are fear and laziness.". At the time, this seemed insightful enough, especially given the undertrained effort I was about to put forth at Rocky Raccoon (which was still good enough for a sub-19-hour finish, and top 10 overall).

But after my Old Dominion 100-Mile/Bel Air Town Run double this past weekend, the words don't sit the same way in my mind. To do the double was weird, no doubt, but on a more basic level, it was scary. These were both important races to me, and I needed to run strong in both to be satisfied with my effort. Who knows what could have happened that could have derailed this effort?

At the same time, those thoughts are thoughts that are rooted in fear and laziness. Obviously fear, but indirectly laziness, too. Because really, fear and laziness aren't all that distant. We are often afraid of things because we're too lazy to prepare properly to face them. And we are often too "lazy" to prepare properly to face things because we are afraid of what putting out the proper effort might involve.

In a way, what I did this past weekend, and what ultrarunning is at its core, is only possible by conquering fear and laziness. To be successful as an ultrarunner, you have to build more than just muscles and capillaries and cardiac efficiency. You have to also build willpower, determination, self-sufficiency, and, above all, the vaguely romantic sense of awe and wonder at the thought of spending hours and hours running on rocky trails through the woods, and hot, shadeless roads, to find out how it feels, to find out what will happen, to find out if you could. Fear and laziness are the enemy.

In that spirit, I went running earlier tonight, to see if I could, and managed a little over four miles, at a little over 8-minute mile pace. And it was good. Fear and laziness? Not here - they're on a different sort of run.