05.09.07
Exploring the unknown, experiencing the familiar…
One of the things that keeps running fresh for me is the feeling of exploration that typically comes with it. There are times when just about everything around me feels like a chore - routine, boring and tiring. But running somehow brings me out of this. I can add a loop through streets that I do not usually visit. I can explore wholly new geographic areas. I can run into a teammate on the side of the road who takes me to new trails and gives me a refreshing new perspective (thanks Jason). In the most repetitive of workouts, such as interval track work, I can experience new physical sensations, be them aches and pains in unusual places, or bursts of unusual strength and energy. I also experience new emotional and mental releases, stemming from achieving targets and goals about which I had doubts (on my better days), or simply being present to physical limits (on the tougher days). On the most typical of training or recovery runs, I often find myself solving and working through new research problems.
Everything about running, however, is in some way familiar. Children grow up learning to walk and run and play; everyone knows in some way what it is like to be out of breath. For those serious runners out there, we have planned routes, locations we like to visit, physical sensations we like (and do not like) to feel, training logs we like to keep, training partners we like to meet up with. We revisit these frequently in our training, learning both to cope with them and work beyond them. The safety and constancy is necessary because it keeps us from becoming overwhelmed.
Why am I thinking about this today? I will engage in a serious act of exploration on Saturday, racing a distance (25 kilometers) that is both unknown and known to me. It is known in the sense that I have run through it now in my two competitive marathon attempts. It is known in the sense that I run through it quasi-weekly on my long runs. It is unknown because the target will be to end there, having put forth a unique, maximal effort that I can look back on and smile, with a new feeling of amazement.
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