Running in the Dark

My last training run took me on a nine-mile loop, all before the sun rose.  It's December, which means the days are the shortest they'll be all year.  We haven't endured our first snowfall of the season yet.  Here in Rochester, we have a long, cold, snowy winter ahead.  And yet, the approach of the shortest day of the year, or if you prefer, the longest night of the year, brings promise of redemption, as just a day later the daylight begins to extend later into the evening and even infringe upon the early morning darkness.  Regardless, it will be a long time before I'm training with any significant natural light to guide me.

Nine miles in the dark.  Several of those miles were run on pitch black streets with only the earth immediately before me visible enough to lead the way.  I'm not afraid of the dark.  In fact, I embraced it along the way.  There was something surreal about running along the quiet roads with only my sense of feel to guide me.  The only sounds that were audible at that hour were my feet hitting the ground and my lungs forcing the breath in and out of my body.  For a few moments, I imagined I was sleep walking, or running, to be more precise.  Traveling along roads without even street lights to guide the way, I sank deep within myself.  And suddenly a whole new light emerged that would lead me down my darkened path.

I live within complexity.  I accept contradiction.  I firmly believe in free will.  I don't think my choices are predestined.  And yet, there are moments in my life that I accept as fate.  Rachel and I were meant to cross paths.  Destiny tried hard to make us meet.  Decisions we both made could have kept that from happening.  But in the end, we made choices that we were supposed to make and we have been together since.  There have been a variety of road signs along the way that have directed me.  I'm sure there have also been countless that I have not seen, or entirely ignored.  

Somehow I think I was supposed to meet Michael Stone.  Michael is the son of friends of my parents.  It was only a few weeks ago I learned of Michael when my mother mentioned him as an Ironman finisher, many times over, and an athlete who does all sorts of "crazy mountain races, and stuff".  I wasn't quite sure what "crazy mountain races, and stuff" meant at the time, but I instantly knew that Michael was my sort of guy.  

Michael is an extreme athlete who happens to be legally blind.  His sight impairment doesn't slow him down, it only further motivates him to do things that most fully sighted people wouldn't dare.  I learned that "crazy mountain races" referred largely to Xterra off-road triathlons, something near the top of my bucket list.  This was one of the most surprising and remarkable discoveries about Michael.  As somebody who earnestly "learned" to ride mountain bikes a year and a half ago and started racing mountain bikes just last spring, I can tell you that eye sight has been both my biggest blessing and curse when riding off road.  Mountain biking theory dictates that, if you don't want to hit something, don't look at it, and if you want to steer your bike along a designated path, however, tight and narrow, don't take your eyes off of it.  It has been the sight of the things that intimidate me, anything from large logs to steep and rocky descents, that have made me hesitate and crash while first learning technical skills.  But it has also been my ability to look beyond those elements, to not see them, to ride by feel and trust myself, that has allowed me to conquer trails I may have never thought passable.  

Michael and I have connected mutiple times on email and once by phone.  Tonight he is scheduled to run at least part of the Las Vegas Marathon as a training run for his next Ironman.  Las Vegas is a nighttime race and I suggested the race could inspire the title of a future book, "Running in the Dark", to which he responded that darkness isn't his problem but, in fact, he usually experiences extreme light.  This comment struck my as I ran along the darkened roads and felt, somehow, enlightened by it.  

Indeed, sometimes darkness isn't the problem, but instead, it is the blinding light that hurts.  Quieting the external noise, the visual distractions, even the actual light from above, I was forced to know myself and trust myself on a whole new level.  Even before this occurred to me, I occasionally close my eyes as I swim endless laps in the pool.  While the intention initially was to experience swimming without being about to see the bottom, as surely will be the case in the triathlons that await me, shutting out the world around me also seems to melt away the anxiety and tension I still sometimes feel while swimming.  

In my communications with Michael, and as I've learned about him when reading his book, Eye Envy, Michael strikes me as someone who has learned to know himself and trust himself on a profound level, perhaps even more so than most.  Sure, it's been a challenge to get there, but I believe that walking, swimming, biking and running "in the dark" has been enlightening in surprising ways.  Just what does it mean to "see" anyhow?   One of the morning blessings that occurs in the daily prayer book of the Jews thanks God "who gives sight to the blind".  I do not believe the the medieval rabbis who penned this prayer ever intended for this to mean visual sight, because sometimes we so most clearly when our eyes our closed.  Just like when mountain biking when, if you don't want to him something, you ought not look at it, so in life if we focus too intently on our fears and anxieties will we eventually be derailed by them.  But if we can look past them, if we can see past them, than surely we can move past them.