Week in Review: 16-22 October 2011 - Boredom

It's been a while since it's been boring like this:

16 October: 10 miles (80 minutes) at Loch Raven, on the trails
17 October: 1 mile (10 minutes) at Patterson Park
18 October: 2 miles (20 minutes) at APG
19 October: 5 miles (35 minutes) in the rain in Holly Woods off of Route 7, for whatever reason
20 October: 9 miles at APG (65 minutes), followed by a late-night 6 miles (45 minutes) in and around Patterson Park
21 October: 7+ miles (~70 minutes) through the Inner Harbor and back
22 October: 15-ish miles (~150 minutes) on the NCR Trail

Total Time: 475 minutes
Total Distance: 55 miles

So there, one goal accomplished: documentation of my daily mileage, which, for the past month, has been helter-skelter (the documentation more than the mileage), because I've been spending a lot more time and effort on "races" (or, in most cases, more accurately, "epic runs") to get it together enough to put this in my entries. I'd guesstimate minimally about 60 miles per week in previous weeks (based on race distances alone, it's unlikely that it would be much less), so this was a bit of a "slow" week for me, in the grand scheme of things.

So here comes the part where I say something deep, or wise, or whatever, as parting words to my 20s, since I turn 30 this coming Saturday (October 29th), in a big way, with back-to-back 50Ks (i.e. back-to-back races of 30-ish miles, as I've come to a point in my life where I'm more than happy to associate an "ish" with my age, lest I be confined or defined by a specific number). Halloweeny 50K (a "fatass" event, for which I will be wearing a surprise silly costume, pictures of which will no doubt end up on here) on Saturday, followed by Fire on the Mountain 50K on Sunday (a "serious" race, maybe - as serious as a race can be when one of the finishing requirements is to throw a branch on a fire).

And so, setting parentheses aside, and temporarily eschewing the complex sentence-splicing techniques that I'm admittedly too fond of, time to be clear and direct: Running has been good to me. I started running at age 13, and since then, I've never gone more than a month without putting on shorts and running shoes and hitting the trails or the streets for at least an easy mile or two. Since then, I've seen and done more crazy running-related things than I'd ever have the time or patience to type out in this blog, and had many a good time with friends along the way. It hasn't always been easy. It hasn't always been pretty. Sometimes, especially at the time, it hasn't been all that fun. But however it was, it's been a huge part of my life.

All of that relative pomp and circumstance aside, though, the thing that fascinates me the most about running is this: All I did, at least once each day for the majority of days over the past 17 years, was put on shorts and running shoes, and hit the streets or the trails for at least an easy mile or two. Put that way, it seems trivial, even inconsequential, especially at the time. But I've seen and done so much that's anything but trivial or inconsequential as a result that, over time, I've changed my view of the "trivial" and "inconsequential." Because this isn't about a journey of a thousand miles starting with a single step; this is about not even knowing that a single step will lead to a thousand-mile journey in the first place.

Or, less proverbially, life's most brilliant moments are apparently built on the mundane, the trivial, the inconsequential. There is always some sort of beauty hidden behind the boredom, waiting to be revealed by the perceptive and the patient.

I'd rather not skew further abstract than that, as I'd rather not come off overly poetic or pretentious about any of this. All I know is that 17 years later, I'm running hundreds of miles in remote wilderness, getting my picture in magazines, wearing silly belt buckles and climbing trash heaps in foreign lands, and none of that was part of a grand plan of mine. It all just happened, because I just happened to stick with something and endure a whole bunch of "whatever," with eyes wide open, to get to a whole bunch of "wow." And as long as my body will have it, I'll continue to endure and embrace the seemingly mundane, because it seems that good things really do come to those who are able to wait.

Also, having to do your business in the woods really gives you a new appreciation for toilets and modern plumbing. Truth.