|
|
|
|
free email
|
by Michael Selman It has been said that runners have their best thoughts of the day while out running. Runner and writer Michael Selman shares his "Thoughts on Running" with us here at ontherunevents.com.
I travel to Dallas on business from time to time. Dallas is a lot like Atlanta in a lot of ways, but very different in two. Trees and Hills. There and very few of either in Dallas. You notice it from the air, flying in. It seems like barren flat nothingness for hundreds of miles, then you approach Dallas and all of a sudden, you are in a barren flat metropolis. Where are all the trees? Where are all the hills? A lot of people I know in Dallas come to Atlanta too. My company’s headquarters is in Dallas, and people are coming here all the time. Most of them are not runners. But this week, I met someone who is. He was in Atlanta for the week, training a class I was attending, and we got to talking. I found out he was a runner when he was looking for an Advil after lunch one day. I just assumed it was because we had all given him a headache, but he said he was aching from a three mile run he did at lunch. I invited him to run my three mile course the next day. He had run the Albuquerque marathon the last year it was run, before the main sponsor pulled out. It was his one and only. He used to run with his wife, but then she bulged a disk, needed surgery, and they both stopped running. He is just getting back now, doing 15 miles a week at a slow pace. But he is doing it. He once carried 185 pounds on his tall frame. Now he is 250 pounds, but he is working on it. Working his way back down. He wants to so another marathon, maybe next year some time. I think he will succeed. We started our run, on a part of my normal route, and he started breathing heavily right away. “The hills” he said. “They hurt.” “Hills” I thought. “These aren’t hills. They are just a normal part of my run.” But I am in Atlanta. He lives in Dallas. It’s all a matter of perspective. I remember once vacationing in the Bahamas. I hooked up with a local runner there, and we started running every morning before he went to work. I learned all about Bahamas time that week. It goes like this. If they plan to meet you at 8, start looking for them around 8:30. You shouldn’t have to wait long. We ran pretty compatibly. Same pace, same interests, and he took me places I never would have gone on my own. He showed me a view of the Bahamas that most tourists would never see, and I was grateful for it. We finished a nice 40 minute run one morning, and he said “Tomorrow, we will run the hills. They’re a killer.” Okay, I thought. I can take it. We met right on time the next morning, about 8:42, and started to run. He kept on talking about the hills we were about to encounter half way through the run. I tried not to be intimidated, but in the back of my mind, I was wondering just how bad they would be. We were running a pretty good pace, but I was thinking I might need to conserve for the heartbreaker we had yet to encounter. About 30 minutes into the run, I noticed that he was struggling, so I asked him how much longer till we hit the hill. Honest I didn’t mean to make him feel bad. His answer surprised me, and I’m sure deflated his ego. “Turn around” he said, dejectedly. “We just passed them a quarter mile ago.” It’s all a matter of perspective. So back to yesterday’s run. My new friend struggled. Every new rise in the terrain presented a new challenge to him. He breathed very heavily, slowed to little more than a walk at some points, but kept on going. I like this guys spirit. We ended up doing a little less than three miles in a little more than 30 minutes. The gently rolling hills in my minds eye must have felt like Pikes Peak to him. We had run the same 3 miles, and each saw something very different. How often do life’s obstacles present themselves in the same way? I am constantly amazed at how one person can easily shrug off the same thing that can devastate another. But is one person’s point of view the correct one? I don’t think so. Or if it is, than it holds true only for that person. A person’s reaction to something is based on the terrain of the course that person is used to running. There is no such thing as “should” when it comes to emotions. We don’t know the topography another person’s life has run. I could not say that my running partner should not have been affected by yesterday’s hills. Flat ground has been his training battlefield, and he fought yesterday’s war in enemy territory. He struggled, but he came out a winner. Sometimes, we are guilty of not understanding anything in another person that is not in our own nature. I have come to realize that everyone has trained on different hills, different altitudes, different temperatures, and at a different pace. The result is that everybody is different. Wonderfully so. It is something to be respected, appreciated, and most importantly, understood and accepted.
Thanks Michael for sharing your "Thoughts on Running" with us here at ontherunevents.com Look here for more "Thoughts on Running" by Michael Selman
Subscribe here to his list or just send him some feedback...he would like to hear from you !
Have you got a human interest story about a runner you know, running news or a race report to share ? ontherunevents.com is happy to share stories with our readers. Send us your stories, your experiences!
Copyright © 1999 ontherunevents.com, All rights reserved.
Click Here to Visit our Sponsor please visit  Contact us today for details on how we can help get your event or product On-line
|
?
I guess it’s just a matter of perspective. I have lived in North Georgia
for the past four years, and I was in North Carolina for the ten prior to
that. In both places, rolling hills are the norm, and, after 14 years,
they grow on you and become your friend. In fact, they become as much a
part of the scenery as the pine trees that line the highways. If you are
not focusing, you hardly even notice either one. But go somewhere where
they don’t exist, and there is a stark realization that something vital is
missing.