The Tribe

In 2009 I found myself shoulder to shoulder with tens of thousands of people. Inside the temporary steel barricade, we had no room to move. We kept our arms close to our sides because the only way to point our arms was up. We hopped up and down to warm our muscles, our heads popping above the masses like prairie dogs on the open plain. We chatted about where we were from and how long it took us to get there. We talked about the struggles of training and our expected paces. On that cold Sunday morning in October, even though we were numbered in the thousands, we were one. 

If you’ve ever been in the middle of a starting corral, you’ve seen the variety of humanity that call themselves runners. We’re a colorful bunch in every sense of the word. When we’re in the corral we find ourselves immersed in a kaleidoscope of brilliant neon, varying degrees of short lengths and shoes that have patterns shouting speed and power. There’s an energy in the starting corral that is palpable and contagious.

But beneath the bright exterior we share a common desire. A desire to exert ourselves and earn something that requires every physical and mental effort. When we’re in the starting corral we look at each other and recognize that we share a goal and that we need each other to get there. On the surface running may seem like an individual sport but that couldn’t be further from the truth. It’s impossible to do it on our own. We have to do it together. Because we are a tribe.

According to one definition, a tribe is a group of persons having common character, occupation or interest. Doesn’t this describe runners to a tee? We are a small group in a big society. We do things that some people don’t understand and can’t comprehend. Some think we’re crazy. Who would willingly run twenty six miles? But what is it that really drives us? What is that character, occupation and interest that describes a tribe of runners?

Our character is something that we were either born with or shaped into. It may not be obvious at first and it may be something that surfaces later in life but the character we share as runners can be described in one word -  determination. We have a determination that bubbles up inside of us, seemingly from nowhere, somewhere from deep within our soul.

Last year my wife and I were driving down a street near our neighborhood. It was a warmer day in late spring. The sky was cloudless and bright blue. We drove by a runner who was striding up a hill with grace and poise. Her legs were kicking, her arms were churning. Her determination was on display. 

As soon as we passed her, I looked at my wife and said “I’m feeling the itch again.” Something about seeing that runner awoke something in me that had been lying dormant for a year and a half. I suddenly felt the need to commit again. I felt the desire to stretch myself, to see what I was made of. By simply seeing a runner do what they do I felt like Maverick and Goose from Top Gun. I felt the need, the need for speed. As a tribe we inspire each other with our character.

Our occupation is simple, to get to the starting line prepared. Training for a long distance race is a part time job. It’s something that we commit to five to six days a week. We sacrifice our valuable time and energy to get to the point that we’re able to toe the start line and break the tape at the other end.  As a tribe we share this job by exchanging training tips, lifting each other up when we’re in the doldrums together and pushing each other when the going gets tough. Our job is to be prepared for the starting line...together.

Do you ever wonder why certain shoe companies invest millions into the sport of running? Do you ask yourself why specialty running stores exist? Do you ever get goose bumps when you walk through the doors of a race expo? Our tribe may be small but the world notices us. They see the passion and our common interest of running.

As a tribe of runners we have made a statement and the world knows we are here. The billion dollar shoe corporation sees us. They engineer, innovate and build shiny and technologically advanced things just for us.  

The neighborhood running store sees us. They’ve popped up everywhere and supply us with expertise, community and hard to find gear. 

Race directors understand us. It’s why they created the race expo. The race expo is a runner’s heaven. It’s the calm before the storm. It’s the place we gather before the final bit of work. It’s a last resort for the things you need for a race, those things you may have forgotten to pack. It’s the place where we pick up our bibs and pins and see our beloved and mysterious race tee shirt for the first time. All through those booths and aisles is a runner’s paradise and the energy is electric and moods are bright. The running expo is where we congregate and commune with each other as a running tribe in an easy going environment.  It’s the last place we meet before we enter the starting corral.

Back in 2009, in that corral, I stood with my people. They protected me from that frigid Chicago morning. They high fived me when the starting pistol fired. They ran with me until the crowds thinned out. And we ran through the Windy City in all of our colorful glory. Not as individuals... but as a tribe.

Five things I learned this week 1/28

1. Changing your diet can be overwhelming.

2. Those little plastic bags that you put produce in a the grocery store need to be redesigned.

3. The conditioning needed to ride a bike is vastly different than running.

4. There is a football shaped hole in my life.

5. I’m ready for warm weather. 

What did you learn this week? 

The Glimmering Finish Line.

This past November I found myself wrangling a twenty foot tall inflatable tunnel that was desperate to free itself from my grip and fly away into the grey Outer Banks sky. There was a bite in the air and the wind was gusting. It took six of us to tame the tunnel. Two of us held it down from the front with straps. Two of us bared our weight from behind to keep it from wiggling away and the final two had the responsibility of attaching a sign to the tunnel, a sign that had one of the most rewarding words you could possibly read. FINISH.

I’ve crossed under many of these inflatable finish lines in my life but this time I got to see It from the other side. I was recruited to greet runners at the finish line. As they came through I clapped for them. I encouraged them and I congratulated them. Runners of all different shapes and sizes and different ages and genders ran underneath that tunnel. For the first time as a bystander I was able to see the full gambit of emotions and reactions:

Wide eyed smiles.

The glow of triumph.

The agony of exhaustion

The sweet rush of releif.

And that unforgettable feeling of simply finishing.

At the finish line, you can’t hide your true self and when you pass through that inflatable tunnel you know exactly who you are and how far you’ve come. All the things you sacrificed, the time you put in, the old habits you discarded fade into history. Because when you cross the finish line, the old you is extinct and you finally get to see the tangible truth that is the new you. But finish lines are not easy to get to.

Do you remember where you started? Think back. Do you remember those New Years resolutions you made a year ago? A week ago? A month? Did you have an idea in your head about what would be different this year? 

If your lucky, you may have made good on at least one resolution of the many that you set for yourself. You were determined. You were inspired and you dug deep. You hung on through the tough times. You succeeded. How did that make you feel to reach the finish line? 

Resolutions, like that inflatable tunnel that we tussled with, are hard to pin down. The new year rolls around and we have fresh ambitions. Something deep inside of us wrestles to be free. In our minds, we see a future that is better than the present. An excitement and indeterable feeling of determination wells up in our gut. We aim for changes, big or small, that will make us better, stronger, shinier.  But what is it that we want to change? How hard will it be? How much do we want to bite off and how much can we chew?

Most resolutions fail because we can’t see the finish line in its complete form. We see change in the distance, a fuzzy image that our mind concocts. The finish line is like a mirage, glimmering at the other end of a vast divide.

We are here. It is there.

Attainable yet so far away.

We’ll have to work for it, sweat for it, sacrifice for it.

Although the finish line is far away it is not impossible to get to. We have to remember that the finish line is a destination. Change happens during the journey, somewhere in that great divide that is in between the here and there. And like that inflatable finish line tunnel, the new us struggles to be free from its restraints of the old us.

So let it go.

Dream. Work. Fly.

Where is your finish line? 

The Itch

Growing up, my family lived in a house with a wooded back yard. In the summers, my brothers and I would spend most of our time in these woods riding our bikes on trails that we carefully designed. These trails snaked around trees and over hills and through shallow creeks. We built towering tree houses in those woods. One was three levels high with a zip line on the top tier. Three brothers, each with their own outdoor living space.

We lived a big chunk of our childhood in those woods, making memories and dreaming big. We reigned in that forest, but we were not alone. There were other things living in those woods. Dangerous things. Things that slithered, things that stung and poisonous things that grew on trees and had leaves of three. 

One afternoon after a day in those woods, I came in the house to a look of horror from my mother. My face had broken out with red angry welts. My eyes began to swell shut. After a few hours, my face was swollen, and I had become unrecognizable. My head had developed the shape, texture, and color of one of those dodge balls we used to play with in the school gym. Mom lathered my face with pink lotion and had me lay on the couch.  And then she gave me this impossible mission:

"Whatever you do, do not scratch it."

There is an oval magnet on the back of my car that reads 26.2 in white letters with a solid black background. It's faded a little and covered in road dust and water spots. Maybe you've seen one or sport one yourself. These magnets or stickers, which come in various mileage options, say something about us. We put these magnets/stickers on our cars because we conquered something significant, and we want the world to know about it.

But when a non runner sees our magnet/sticker what do they think? When they ask why, what is the answer?  

Generally when people ask me about the magnet they have three questions:

What does the number mean? 

You actually run that many miles in one day? 

Why the (enter expletive) would you do that? 

Every runner has a reason. I've met many of them and read about a lot of them and they all have different answers to the question why.

They run to make a living. They run simply because it's fun. They run because they looked in the mirror one day and didn't recognize who they saw. They run because they loved and lost someone. They run to raise awareness. There is no right or wrong answer to this question but there is one thing we can all agree on. It began with a subtle nudge, a gentle prodding.

We saw something, listened to something, read something, or experienced something. The desire to run started as an itch. It was an itch that disguised itself as a thought or a feeling that began in the mind and slowly moved its way into our hearts. It spread into our everyday thoughts and we couldn't help ourselves. It became an itch that we just had to scratch.

I felt the itch again a year after my fourth marathon. It didn't take much. I caught glimpses of runners on the sidewalk as I drove. It was late summer when marathon training would have been in full gear, and I imagined that these runners were getting ready. They were logging those last hard runs and fine tuning their pace and form. They looked determined and focused. They were quick on their feet and their gait was fluid. I've been in their shoes and knew what they were feeling. In those moments, the itch had surfaced. It was something I could no longer ignore. 

A few months later I signed up for marathon number five, still with no answer to the question why other than I couldn't help myself. I had to do it again. I did what my mother forbid me to do as a child and decided to scratch the itch one more time.

There is a desire in all of us. The desire to accomplish things. The desire to better ourselves and to reach new heights, to make a difference. This desire begins with a dull prodding that comes from somewhere deep within us. It's something in our subconscious that starts as a whisper and slowly turns into a roar. It begins as a tickle deep down in our gut and ends up surfacing as that irresistible itch.

What is your itch? 

The Bees

News flash. Bees have very short life spans. Their life cycles vary from a few weeks to a few months. If one of them is lucky enough to be queen, they could live up to two years. But if they are not the queen, they’ll have a very short but productive life. Basically, bees hatch from their eggs, do the thing that they were born to do and leave this world just as quickly as they came in. Their lives are short but fruitful. If you watch the bees live their lives, you’ll see passion and efficiency. You’ll see that the bees love what they do.

The bees come out at our house in late March. The first to arrive are those big bees that buzz like a weed eater and sound bigger than they are. These bees bore tiny holes in the side of our house just under the gutter and zip around the backyard like tiny tomahawk missiles.

Our naive dog likes to chase these bees around the yard, leaping on all fours like an antelope, not necessarily wanting to catch them but to be best friends with them. He tracks them but then loses them. Where did they come from? Where did they go? He’ll quickly lose interest in the bees and carry on with his everyday backyard agenda -  until they meet again.

My wife on the other hand wants nothing to do with the bees. To her, they may as well have been sent from the furthest depths of Hades by the devil himself. Needless to say, she hates bees. Any bees. Even these friendly bees that only want to make a home on the side of our house, flutter their wings loudly and live their lives in the lush wonder of our backyard.

To me, the arrival of the bees signals a new season. I’ll often sit on the couch and stare out the backdoor and watch the bees dart in out and out of view. In these moments I start thinking about all the things that went into hibernation with me during the winter months. I think about the runners highs, running expos and finish lines celebrations. I remember lake days and beaches. Honeysuckle and sun screen. I remember softball, shaded decks, weekend road trips and all the wonderful things that come around in the warmer months of the year. To me, the arrival of the bees strikes up nostalgic memories of warm days past. More so, they stir up a desire to make the most of these new days. The bees remind me that life is short. Make the most of it.

The big bee in my backyard tapped the window like a pebble and I snap out of the haze. My dog, staring out the same window, follows the bee with his eyes. His ears are at full alert and his head whips back and forth with the bee’s flight path. The bee is calling to us both. I look down at him. He’s perched anxiously below the door handle. He looks back up at me with his wide orange eyes. I like to think that we are thinking the same thing. Let’s get out there and pick up where we left off.

Last year the warm days ended in mid October, on a dreary day in Washington DC. I was standing in a starting corral in a rain soaked white sweatshirt that was frayed at the sleeves and neck.  My right foot was in discomfort. Not pain but discomfort. Something was strained. 

To make matters worse, I had eaten something the day before that didn’t agree with me. I visited the port-o-potties no less than ten times before the race and along the race course. My body couldn’t hold the nutrients that it needed so I was running on fumes from the very beginning.

The marathon is hard. It’s meant to be. It’s designed to test your resolve, to see what you’re made of. It’s never easy even if you’re in perfect health. Sometimes your race is full of stops and starts. Sometimes it’s hard to find your rhythm. Sometimes you simply don’t have it. But you keep going because life is short and some things must be finished.

A grandstand full of people cheered for us as we raced up the final hill towards a line of marines that huddled around the finish line. I was beaten that morning but there was something that made me keep pushing. 

You visualize things in training. You imagine that grandstand full of people clapping just for you. You imagine your family and friends there with big smiles on their faces, full of pride. You imagine crossing the finish line with your arms raised and the sun shining down on you like a spotlight and confetti flying all around. These are some of the things that push you through the pain and fatigue.

But in reality, there was no beam of sunlight shining down on me and no confetti. My finish was not glamorous or glorious. In fact I almost threw up on a Marine. I limped across the finish line in well over five hours. And in that moment I knew that winter was close. Spring and summer had come and gone. 

Luckily memories can be as short as north Georgia winters. They’re often sharp and piercing but may only linger for what seems like moments. They’re here today and gone tomorrow.

Towards the end of it’s reign, winter wrestles with spring to see who will be king for the day. After a few weeks and fewer wins, winter submits and the air warms up to a consistent temperature. Tree blooms explode with bouquets of pink and white. Lawnmowers growl in the distance. Convertibles convert. The smell of grilled meat sifts through the neighborhood. 

The bees show up again.

The life of a bee is short. But if they teach us anything, it’s that life begins again. Despite our failures and disappointments, spring will always come. We are all born to do something, to be something. And we were designed to do it to the best of our abilities.