July 2011

How Will You Remember? - By Wilt Alston “How little remains of the man I once was, save the memory of him! But remembering is only a new form of suffering.”  ~ Charles Baudelaire Everyone’s running career goes through phases, it seems. Beginning. Improving. Plateauing. Setting a new goal. Discovering a new event. Trying a new training method. Attempting to recapture old glories. Reconciling oneself to the realities of past glory that is really, well, passed. Hanging on. Ending. Along the way, as I’ve mentioned in at least one previous column, it is helpful—and I might argue essential—to remember that “it’s supposed to be fun.” Luckily, there are sign-posts that mark the journey. The question I would pose is: How will you remember them? Will you remember them? Recently, during one of our many discussions during a (rare) free minute of the Xerox Rochester International Jazz Festival, a buddy of mine and I lamented the destruction of Midtown Shopping Mall. Here was a Rochester landmark, the first enclosed downtown shopping mall in the United States, relegated to piles of rubble. In only a few more months, visitors to Downtown won’t realize it ever existed. A few years after that, it is likely that few longtime residents will even care. Coincidentally, the same ostensible march of progress leaves muddy tracks in other locales. (My buddy mentioned how only an eleventh hour mobilization by the Historical Society saved New York City’s historic, and beautiful, Penn Station.) We all, I think, realize that the steady advance of time leads inexorably to the destruction of physical spaces that hold sentimental value. Running accomplishments are more fleeting than historic buildings. Maybe, for this reason, it is even more important to take specific steps to store them away. For example, I used to keep every race number from a race I had completed. At some point, probably back when I could blaze through a 5K at around 20 minutes without too much trouble, or when my speed work consisted of running a near sub-40 minute 10K each weekend, I decided that keeping all that “stuff” was a waste of time. Over the years, probably like many of you reading this column, I have tended to get slower. (I have no idea why this has happened, but if anyone can give me a clue, I’m all ears!) As those faster times got fewer and further in-between, I have begun to wonder if I should have kept those race numbers. This year, in my “re-boot” of running—after getting healthy from a couple of nagging injuries, and adopting a more minimalist approach—I have rediscovered the fun that had somehow seeped out. (Some may recall my lamenting the “fun” to be found in spending 4 hours looking at one’s watch and doing math in one’s head, all with the goal of “qualifying” or some such.) This year, for no particular reason, and corresponding to a rediscovery of that fun, I’ve also begun to save my race numbers again. On each of them, I’m writing the date and the time, and any other thought that occurs to me. Who knows how long I’ll do it, but I suspect it will become a staple of my running habit, much like how I handle marathon medals. (Whenever I run a marathon, I tend to wear the medal all the next day, despite some fleeting embarrassment about it. My reasoning is pretty simple: If I’m too proud to wear the medal I earned for running 26 miles, maybe running 26 miles is something I shouldn’t waste my time doing.) The point of it all, anyway, is to find a way to celebrate the journey, not so I can look back and lament the minutes and seconds I’ve lost along the way, but more to relish the miles I enjoyed during that journey. In this way, remembering the runner I once was will not become a form of suffering but, instead, a means of mental refueling. Not a way to look back and be sorry, but a way to look ahead and be excited again. Here’s hoping you find a way to celebrate—and remember—your journey.