Saturday I have a 50 kilometer run planned. Last year it took about four hours and forty-five minutes. Much of it will likely be run alone; my normal training partners are in better shape this year and will likely run a faster pace than I will be comfortable with. Commonly I am asked what I do to fill such an expansive period of time. Do I listen to music? Do I listen to audio books? Half-jokingly I often respond that do a lot of thinking. Although there is an edge of sarcasm to this, it is the truth. For several hours my mind is often engaged in quiet contemplation.
Speaking of which, I was once taught to meditate using the following technique. Imagine an expansive floor; mine is always a simple black and white tiled one. With a mental broom sweep away all thoughts except the one you wish to focus on. As outside thoughts drift in, keep sweeping them away. The floor should be clean except that one thing so that your focus is unimpeded. This process of maintaining a clean mind seems to happen naturally on the long solo runs. The background is breaths and strides instead of dichromatic tiles, and there is room only to allow in the plainest of thoughts. For much of the time the idea is merely present, and I would say that little thinking actually occurs. Instead I merely allow the thought to be an uncertainty worthy of examination.
It goes without saying that we live in a world where we are constantly being bombarded by information: some relevant, most inane. All of it competes for our attention, and we try to focus on much of it. The effect is a splintering of the mind. I see this everyday as my students try to work in class while listening to music. For years I have struggled with whether I should even allow it in class while the kids do independent tasks. The real issue is not whether the kids can work with music being pumped into their heads but whether they can think. Unfortunately school has become completing tasks not thinking through questions and problems. Can we really devote our full attention to a task if we are not given the mental space to consider it clearly and without competition?
A second common question that I am asked about this project and specifically the blog is why the posts are so long. Most are in essay format. Why not turn the blog into a Facebook page? Why not tweet about the runs once I am done: “50K, OMG my legs are toast, glad its over”. While this would surely simplify my life and likely also reach a much broader audience, this project, the Endurance Scholarship, is at its soul is about time. The kids who I want to reward have stayed focused on surmounting their obstacle for, in some cases, many years. They have swept away distractions because they knew that there was one thing that deserved their complete attention. For me, accomplishing my goal is also about time and the process that inevitably occurs as a result: a mulling over, a deep contemplation, and an unwillingness to accept the first thing as the best. No one I know could get off the couch and run 50 miles without a serious investment of time first. You cannot cheat in the process and still expect to finish.
Therefore the long runs are processes of discovery. They peel back the layers of strengths and weaknesses and expose, only after the passage of serious time and effort, what is really at the core. This is why the posts are not blurbs. You cannot explore in the 140 characters of a tweet. A Facebook post is not a thought but a bullet-pointed statement let alone a process of exploration. You only really uncover what you believe by trying to fully articulate it. These long posts are attempts to strip down an idea and reveal not just the heart of the issue in a way that is bumper sticker ready but to also consider the layers that lead to that condensed statement.
It is true that I do a lot of thinking on the long runs. Ideas are rolled across the mind the way wine should be drunk. A single glass is swirled and sniffed. The liquid is rolled across the tongue and aerated against the palate. Consumption is the last and least of the steps. The same is true for the thinking that occurs. Settling on the result is like swallowing the wine. It is merely the end of the larger and more meaningful process. Sometimes endurance is not about outlasting something that you wish would end but wishing something would last because the end is the least meaningful part.
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