June 24, 2013

This past Friday night, I collected a unique race experience at the Rock the Night Away Lake Perry trail half-marathon. Any time you arrive at the start line and are in the minority for not having glow sticks as part of your race attire, you know you’re in for a wild ride. Once true darkness fell on the single-track, about half an hour into the race, visibility was limited to a gently bobbing patch of head-lamp illumination. (Or, in the case of one of the fellows behind me, motion-sickness inducing swinging.) Over the miles, I established my own place in the darkness, as though 200 other participants had disappeared on a 6.5 mile loop.

I recently ran with a friend who is a marvelously brave mountain biker, but a trail running neophyte. She, like many others, is genuinely afraid of falling. It seems this becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, as she ended the hour with a cracked Garmin and bloody wrist. The more you fear gravity, the more it seems to find you. Force even the most seasoned trail aficionado to run down a rocky hill or even a straight patch of single track with his eyes closed, and you would likely see an otherwise smooth gait reduced to a fearful, awkward, jerky motion. Yet, when presented with actual darkness, the pace of the race last weekend slowed, but remained steady. Those who had the energy to run kept running. Those who walked, would have walked in daylight, too. Some tripped, some fell, but the rocks claimed no more casualties than any other trail race I’ve seen. For me, at least, there was peace in knowing that I only had to run as fast as my feet could process the information. I suppose that’s true of any race, but with the added stimulation of sight, there’s always a battle between how fast your mind processes the information and how quickly your body can respond.

Often times, I think we face the same battle in much of everyday life. We spend so much time anticipating what lies ahead or trying to get to the next turn as fast as possible that we forget what’s under our feet. We trip and fall down. In response, we start staring at our feet, which might reduce the risk of falling, but slows everything down and usually gets us lost. So we start to look around again. The cycle continues and fear grows. What was once a clean slate of possibilities during childhood or adolescence is now marred with the fear of either falling down or becoming lost. Every now and then, maybe we should run with a headlamp in the dark…trust our feet a little more, look ahead just enough to see the big rocks and turns ahead. Then, when the sun comes up again, we might be able to face the day with softer eyes and a little more peace to replace the fear.