12 February: 10 miles (70 minutes) on the coldest Baltimore morning this winter, 10 more miles (70 minutes) on the coldest Baltimore evening this winter.
13 February: 1 mile (10 minutes); sick stomach day.
14 February: 10 miles (70 minutes) at lunch with Luke, in my makeshift Ritz "compression-boxers" outfit.
15 February: 1 mile (10 minutes); whatever.
16 February: 11+ miles at lunch (80 minutes), including 3 miles at high-5-minute-mile pace with Luke and Brent; 3+ miles in the evening (25 minutes).
17 February: 20 miles (140 minutes), all over APG, just because.
18 February: My "running devotion day" - 10 miles in the morning (70 minutes), 10 miles mid-day (70 minutes), 10 miles in the evening (70 minutes), walking everywhere in between (about 13 miles of walking)
Total time: 685 minutes
Total distance: 97 miles
A couple of crummy days dragged my weekly mileage total back into double-digits (albeit high double-digits), but all things considered, I am okay with this.
Now, some words about devotion. Allow me to wax Catholic for a moment here, unpopular though it may be, since I think there is some value to be found here . . .
A "devotion," in the Catholic context, is an act, often centered around a particular object or artifact, repeated periodically, as witness to the faith. All of that amounts to a resounding "who cares," unless you realize that in the Catholic tradition, believers are (or, should be, anyway) acutely aware of the inherent reality in an apparently symbolic act. (Huh? Keep reading . . .)
The doctrine of transubstantiation (the belief that the bread and wine used during the celebration of the Mass, become, during consecration, the physical body and blood of Christ) is the most dramatic example, but even more mundane "devotions," such as reading and meditating on a passage from the Bible, from the Catholic perspective, share this quality. Giving time and self to the devotion results not only in the symbolic appearance of the act, or even just the tangible consequences of the act, but, most importantly, and most uniquely, the often unnoticed, but very real intangible transformation of the participant and the larger world through the act.
Which, by way of providing something concrete to clarify the conceptual, brings me to my running devotion. I'd been toying with the idea of running three 10-mile runs in one day, one in the morning, one at mid-day, and one in the evening for a while now. Not because it would necessarily be difficult or challenging, but because I felt that the experience would be meaningful somehow.
I hadn't set a date for it, but considering all of the turmoil this past week, this past Saturday just felt like the right time for the devotion - for one full day, to give myself to running (and, generally speaking, bipedal motion - I went everywhere on foot that day, walking 13 miles before, during, and after runs), and to see what would come back to me. I also decided, last-minute, to take a picture from each run, to try to capture the energy of the moment. And here's what happened . . .
Awake on my own at 6:30 a.m., after a 2-mile 2 a.m. stumble with a friend back to my house from Max's in Fells, addled by too many "value" Belgian beers, in a slow blur, I rolled out of bed, leaving her still sleeping soundly, to wrestle on running gear, tend to the cats (fortunately, the one that followed us most of the way home decided not to follow us into the house), and numbly lurch those few steps forward into my first 10-mile run of the day.
As I headed east, flooded with fresh daylight, the light fullest of possibility, I turned last night's memories over in my mind. Liking ice cream on Tuesdays, the "Eating Disorder Warehouse Supercenter," subjecting China to genocide, five abortions, one "on" a person in an act, and somewhere, amidst all of the dark humor, the little light of a genuine "I love you," from a friend, to a friend. And then this happened:
7:17 a.m.
And the shadow that I had been chasing was overwhelmed by the orange glow of the still-breaking daylight, and the ivy on the brick an abandoned building on the east side of Baltimore. And it occurred to me that, even here, there was far too much light in the day to dwell on the shadow. Now westward bound, the subtle warmth of the sun bathing my back on an otherwise cold morning, I headed home. The first run.
A few hours later, my friend trounced unceremoniously down the stairs, and, dangling a metal water canteen from a carabiner, I escorted her, in her huge green-plastic-framed accidentally-hipster sunglasses, down Eastern Avenue back to the Legg Mason building, as we pondered, among other things, why the birth control ring hadn't been adapted as a suppository yet.
Because there was no reason not to, she gave me the tour - all of the typical office cliches, but surrounded by amazing views of downtown Baltimore that I had never seen, that made me wish I had brought my phone. After cleaning out her "dumpster car" (because if you accidentally leave perishable food in a closed car overnight, it ends up smelling exactly like a dumpster), laughing all the way (because a car that smells like a dumpster is just plain funny), she drove me out of the dim garage, and dropped me off at the Polish monument at Harbor East, and I walked the 2+ miles back to my house alone, arriving at about the right time for my second run.
This time I felt a little more solid, and even the climb up the north side of Patterson Park on Baltimore street felt bearable. As I descended towards downtown, I came across this:
1:30 p.m.
Sun high in the sky, illuminating equally the lavish Legg Mason building in the background, and the vacant lot in the projects, surrounded by a barbed-wire-topped fence where I stood. And it turned out that, in the light of day, everything, no matter what it was, all together, all at once, could be something beautiful.
With a new awareness of my place in all of this, I weaved nimbly south on Charles Street, narrowly avoiding a low-speed car crash (and leaving the dozens of other onlookers as the witnesses), through the bustle of the Inner Harbor, along the waterfront promenade, and back to the east. The second run.
A leisurely 1+ mile walk to Panera and back to re-fuel, and I returned in time to finally get around to charging my iPod shuffle. As I sat on the purple carpeted floor in my basement, vaguely feeling the daylight dim, my anxiety grew as I could feel the heaviness in my legs. Even with the music, this might be unbearably uncomfortable . . .
But within a few steps, I could feel the energy release, and, as if I hadn't run a step all day, I bounded across the grass in the park, towards the sunset, looking for my chance to capture the dying light:
5:30 p.m.
And as the sun set, unaccompanied by any of the brilliant colors that I had hoped for, and night fell, my pace quickened nonetheless, as I passed people on the streets just beginning their prowl for that ambiguious "good time" on a Saturday night. Even in the darkness, there was an energy waiting to be captured and channeled. Running low-6-minute-mile pace, joyfully, I passed a group of photographer-types, bulky DSLR cameras hanging from heavy straps around their necks, and, as the panorama from the end of the pier at Fells Point came into brilliant view, I felt the light of a camera flash behind me.
I slightly regret now simply smiling back at them as I headed inland - a picture of me, in a bright red shirt and tiny black shorts, heading off into the dark blue backdrop, might have been something worth keeping. But it might be worth even more in its mysterious life elsewhere. Soon enough, I was home again, closing out appropriately enough to Rage Against the Machine's "Tire Me" on my iPod shuffle, and happy to rest. The third run.
Restless legs and a restless heart moved me to walk 2 miles back to Fells for pizza and people-watching, and as I came full-circle on my cold, solitary, sober walk home, I felt strangely satisfied.
Nothing obviously remarkable had happened today. And I could still feel remnants of of the past week's emotional roller-coaster. But as I reflected on the energy I had drawn from different sources throughout the day, the path ahead became clearer.
Because ultimately, devotion gives an act deeper meaning, and a life beyond the apparent life of the act. Too often, people act in ways to pacify, to appease, to divert, to delay, to self-medicate. Acting this way makes you a victim, subject to the whims of the world, struggling to keep head above metaphorical water.
But devotion to an act - true conviction to its cause, its substance, and its outcomes on all levels, breaks the cycle of victimhood. My running devotion made present the light and the energy that brings beauty to my life, and also gives back energy to others, not only in obvious ways, but also in ways that I may never even know happened. And in that way, my destiny becomes a matter of choice more than chance.
So if there is a single point here (and there probably isn't, but because we grasp for resolution, always, there needs to be at least a reasonable approximation), it's that if you're feeling lost and unfulfilled, maybe you should get off the damn internet and find a devotion - something, anything, that you can do regularly and purposefully, that brings new positivity into the world. And just let the meaning reveal itself.
Or, just watch this video. See if I care.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_BstJzcQNA
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