Night Lights

My son, who is five and a half months old, is still too small to push in our jogging stroller, so when I arrive home in the afternoon to be a stay-at-home dad, my ability to train in the daylight hours is severely limited. This is particularly true now that the cold and wet of Oregon's winter is upon us in full force. When I was preparing for my previous marathons, he had yet to be born; afternoons were free for me. I was able to capitalize on the several hours I had to myself by doing long runs before my wife would come home.

Evenings are usually the only time I have to run during the week. Last night I donned my headlamp at 8PM, dressed myself in fluorescent yellow, and grabbed my strobe. It was 29 degrees when I left the house; it was cold but at least dry. I was able to pound out a short thirty-five minute run before it became too late in the evening.

As I ran, my thoughts kept coming back to this idea that we can rarely see beyond the dim light we are projecting in our own lives. My tiny headlamp cast a glow that dulled less than two foot strikes away from me. Beyond this gray halo was pitch black. If I did not move forward, I would have never illuminated new ground. I would have been reduced to standing on the tiny island of light. By running though, by having faith that the light would move with me and illuminate more of the ground, I was able to amplify that tiny island of safety into a ribbon of road stretching nearly five miles in length.

What a powerful metaphor for what I am trying to illustrate with my ultra-marathon. There is no guarantee of success. The tiny batteries could have died leaving me stranded in the dark and cold. I could not hold on to that fear though. I had to move forward striding into the dark, hoping that the light would move with me.

Rarely are we given the full time and "light" that we need for a given task. I know that I will never have the exact time and resources I will need to prepare for the ultra-marathon. However I do know that I can stretch my halo of light from one small island to a five mile ribbon and perhaps even ten times that distance.