Born to Run?

Last month I ran a grueling 10K. Absolutely grueling. It was the last part of the South Maui Triathalon, an Olympic Tri that also included a 1.5 K swim and a 25 mile bike ride. My legs were already pretty tired before I even hit the pavement, and there wasn't a flat stretch in sight. It was all up, down, then back up the rolling hills of Wailea.

As I ascended the last big hill, just grinding it out at this point, a tall guy caught up with me. "You know what this course needs?" he asked with a smile on his face. He kind of looked like a runner's version of Barrack Obama. "More hills."

Then he took off into the distance, scaling the hill almost effortlessly.

How did he just do that?

The basic premise of Born to Run by Christopher McDougall (read it, seriously) is that we as humans are designed to be runners. Running is what has allowed our species to survive and thrive and avoid extinction over the years. Even though times have changed and now we're more suited to sitting in comfortable chairs and thumbing iPads, we've still inherited the ability to run long distances.

I like this. My foot doctor might disagree, though, if I told him I was born to run. He once told me that if you lined me up with 99 other people, no one would have feet as flat as mine. The surgeons at Virginia Mason who loosened up my calves with scalpels and scissors six years ago might also beg to differ. And when I'm out on the road going for an evening jog, it doesn't quite feel as natural as, say, eating pizza or sitting on the couch watching Jersey Shore.

So maybe I didn't inherit the goods. Maybe I would have had to hang back with the other non-runners of the tribe to gather seeds and berries while the real runners tracked down the food back in prehistoric times.

But who knows, maybe the guy who passed me on that hill wasn't born to run either. Maybe he had bad feet as well, or problems with his legs too. Maybe he wasn't Barrack-fontaine at all. What I do know is that there was one distinct thing that separated the two of us. Joy. He was smiling and joking as we climbed that hill while I was just trying to convince my legs to carry me to the finish line so the suffering would end.

The book pointed this out a few times. Most of the best runners, the ultra marathon champions who dominated the 50, 60, and even 100 mile races, were filled with joy, happiness, and love as they ran. As they hit their strides, they'd be smiling.

I think it ties into something that I've heard a lot- that we are the best and purest forms of ourselves when we are playing. When your heart fills with joy and the stress fades to the background, that's when you are at your prime. Back in my little league days, I could make a play or two out in center field, but I was no Ken Griffey, Jr. Put me in my back yard with my brothers, my dad, and a tennis ball, though, and I would run down any fly ball he threw. I'm pretty sure I would log at least three or four Web Gems each time out there. And to think- we were just playing around.

Humans are an incredible species. But maybe we can only reach the truly incredible when we load up on joy and love and just play. When we do that, then maybe we are truly born to run.

As I try to improve my running and be "born again," I'm going to try to crack a smile every once in a while. I'll laugh and strike up a convo as I jog by someone. Maybe if I straighten my back a little, stop landing on my heels, and enjoy the ride and not just the finish, I can be the one cruising up hills, leaving little flat-footed strugglers in the dust wondering how. I guess there's only one way to find out.

Time to go out there and play around a bit.