|
|
|
|
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.
Running, also, has it’s own language of gibberish, rarely heard, and even more rarely understood, outside of high school tracks, road race starting lines, and monthly track club meetings. I like to call them words of excellence. We don’t even realize we flaunt them. They flow out of our mouths like water at the mouth of a river. When I ask someone about how their speed play session went, I think nothing of asking “ So, did you fartlek during your run?” I ask this regardless of what we had for dinner the night before. We go to the track to do “intervals,” and we do “LSD” on Sunday mornings. Timothy Leary would be so proud. Our HRM’s tell us if we might be close to our MHR, and we ponder if we could raise our VO2 Max if we could only push back our lactic acid threshold. We deal with ITB syndrome and lament every DNF. I was in a running chat room on AOL one night, and someone in the room asked what everybody’s 5K PR was. Suddenly an instant message directed to me appeared out of nowhere. A running newbie was present in the room. Her question was “ What is a PR?” It’s so easy to assume these terms to be part of everybody’s everyday language, until reminded differently. I thought for a second, and then IM’ed her back. PR stood for personal record, or the best time that someone has ever had. We then went back to the discussion in the room, where the assembled were still talking about best times, as if those times were embedded in the distant past. Mostly in their 40’s and 50’s now, we weren’t holding out much hope for PR’s any more. But my new friend, while asking a very innocent question, gave me some new insight with her observations, from her own point of view. She asked “ Why are you all talking about PR’s as if they happened so long ago and are not yet within your grasp? As a non-runner, I could not go on with life without thinking my best times still lay ahead of me. I am looking forward to having better times this year than I did last year. That is always one of my New Year’s resolutions. Why should running a race be any different?” What a concept. PR means best times ever. If we live our lives as if our best times are behind us, then they probably are, running or otherwise. I thought to myself, “Have I been living life as if I have already PR’ed, and now my expectations are not higher than what they used to be? Am I guilty of not looking for new challenges, because I’m already content with what I’ve done? If so, than the race might as well be over.” Well, I looked at myself and where I was and discovered I was living as if I had already done all my PR’s years ago. I used to think I had never run on a treadmill. Now, I realized I was already on one, and had been on it, working hard, but never moving forward, for many years. It was time to face new challenges. It was time to make major changes in my life. It was time to get off the treadmill, and direct my goals towards new PR’s. The best times still lay ahead! Training for a PR is very hard and painful, and gets even harder as you get older. The intervals hurt worse, and the dull pain stays longer. But it’s the medicine you have to swallow for better times. Life has it’s intervals, too, if you chose to view your PR’s as still ahead of you. Those are the changes that are most hard to make, but most necessary for ultimate growth. Those are the changes that you are not always sure are necessary to make, and often remain lurking in the back of your mind. If not acted upon, they are supressed. You do not achieve PR’s that way. I can never explain the reasons that some things work out the way they do, but I do know that all things always work out for the best, for those who believe they will. I spent years convinced that my PR’s were well behind me. Now I have a new outlook. Literally, I have a goal of running a PR by years end at the 5K distance. I need to run a 19:51 to break it. I have not broken 20 minutes for a 5K but once, in 1983. Up until now, that was a once in a lifetime race. Figuratively, I am also looking for better times than I have ever had before. It’s the only way to live life. John Barrymore said it best. “A man is not old until dreams turn to regrets.” I am guilty of being a dreamer, but also of never growing old. I like it that way, and wouldn’t change it for anything in the world. A very best friend of mine asked me recently what my marathon PR was. At one time, I would have answered 3:58:02. But that day, when I heard that question, I had a completely different answer. Without even thinking about it, I quickly replied “I don’t know, I haven’t run it yet.” What a perfect answer that was, for marathons, as well as life.
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
|
?
For every hobby, every profession, and every interest, there is a related
jargon. This is the terminology used within the confines of the given
discipline. As a trainer within the telecommunications industry, I
affectionately call it telebabble. I take new hires to the company and
teach them about MTSO’s, VFRG tables, TDMA and CDMA, DTMF, home rate
roaming and various pre call validation systems as if these were household
words. I explain the virtues of NACN, DS3's ISDN and Frame Relay, and
warn them about the dangers of cloning fraud. By the time I have finished
training a group of new hires for weeks on end, they know the language of
telephony pretty well.