The Dark Place

The Dark Place

I was watching, or rather being forced to watch a show called “Strange Addictions” with or by my oldest daughter this weekend.  They had the following roster of aberrant freaks to parade: a guy who ate glass compulsively, a lady who plucked and ate her own hair, a man who was in a deep and meaningful relationship with his real doll and, wait for it, a gentleman who was addicted to running.

I only saw parts of it, but apparently the runner was, to my eyes anyway, a run-of-the-mill ultra runner who liked 100 milers.  The real issue was that his fiancée was a bit of a shrew and was put out by being a running widow.  She was whining about being nothing more than a glorified support crew.  Really?  Is that the same as eating your own hair or munching light bulbs?

The whole time my daughter was telling me that I was addicted to running.

Last week, I was out on a long run with my friends Brian and Frank.  Both Brian and Frank are, shall we say “seasoned’ amateur athletes who I have known as running buddies for over a decade now.  They are just normal guys, like me, with mortgages, wives, kids, regular jobs, and tuitions to pay.

Both of them run Boston with me every year and both of them have beaten the 3 hour marathon barrier at Boston over the last couple years but are now slowing it down again to my speed.

We were talking about qualification standards.  We are of the opinion that any normal person who is willing to put in the work can run the qualification standards.  But, we have done it, and that gives us a different vantage point.

In this conversation, at one point Frank’s brow furrowed and a shadow crept over his countenance.  He uttered the phrase “…if you are willing to go to that dark place…”

Brian and I nodded gravely and suppressed shudders.  We know about the dark place.  And I think, many of you do too.

For us mortals of normal ability the only way for us to achieve these ‘A’ level goals is to traverse the dark place at some point in our training.

To know the dark place is to know weeks of cold and dark and ceaseless, mindless and mostly joyless work.  The only way through the dark place is to keep moving forward or to jump out of the boat.  There is indeed a loss of self to this quest.  Where just about everything else is put on hold and you commit monk-like to the work.

The coach’s schedule becomes a driving tyrannical metronome of one impossible work out after another.  There are no garbage miles.  There are no fun runs in the dark place.  Every workout is tantamount and punishing.  Today we will warm up for 20 minutes then run 6 miles at 10k race pace.  Tomorrow we will run a double to get our mileage up over 60, 70 and 80 miles per week.

It makes no sense so we shut the mind off throw ourselves like punch-drunk soldiers into the shield wall again and again until either we break or we come out the other side, blinking, into the light to run our race.

We look back on these campaigns with wonder as if we are looking at some other person, because indeed we become some other person, or half-person or animal and pitch to the storm blows of work.  Like a storm, when you are inside you are only thinking about how to stay on your feet and brace for the next wave.

Is it the achievement at the end that drives us into the slave galley of the dark place? Or is it the ecstasy of mindlessness that comes with the work?  The way it narrows your focus?  Your cares become very simple.  How can I get enough rest to hit that next workout with the intensity required?  When can I schedule the 2 hours I need on Thursday?  Other, more every day, mundane things become spurious.

And, yes, in this way it becomes an addiction.  Because it begins to crowd out everything else in your life.  Your thoughts tunnel to when and where your next workout will be…your next fix…

That’s what we mean when we say that anyone can do it if they are willing to do the work.  What we really mean, what we wear like a bizarre badge of honor, is that we are willing to go to the dark place to achieve our goals.

This, my friends, is really the difference.   Not talent, not grace,  but the abilityof a normal everyday person to subvert self towards a goal.  It is the purification ritual of our sport and that’s why we hold it in high esteem.

My Dad use to say to me when I was younger that the reason you want good grades is that it shows you are either smart or work hard, and either way it’s a good sign.  In much the same way when we make the standards for running it means we are either talented or willing to work hard, or some combination of both.

I’m pretty sure I could or could have broken 3 hours at Boston if I was willing to do the work.  But I was and I am not.  I am willing to run 60 miles a week at the peak of my training and commit an hour a day or so to it.  I have drawn my personal line beyond which, into the darkness, I will not venture further as we all must.

My line might very well look like a dangerous and strange addiction to someone else, Or it might look like a waste of talent, of selling myself short to men like Frank and Brian who galloped through the dark place with 80+ mile weeks.

When I first started running I thought I was dedicated with my 15-20 mile weeks and occasional long runs, but I did not know success until I found my line, deep within the dark place.

Everyone draws their own line.  It is a choice.  And it is a choice only you can make.  But this sport, this pursuit, this sometime obsession is not a spectator sport.  You cannot claim the wisdom of a traveler by looking at posters and brochures.  You have to go.  You have to meet the people, eat the food and drink the water.

You cannot claim camaraderie with the veterans if you were not in the war.  And you can’t claim a veteran runner’s zeitgeist unless you have gone to the dark place and come out again.  To truly know the joy of the sport, the heft and weight of its experience you have to get down and roll in it and soak up its stench.

The dark place is not an easy journey.  Many will break before they are through, but even the broken will be forged well in the heat of it.

Some people will see an unhealthy pursuit, an obsession, ne an addiction.  But we know the truth.  That it is a journey through personal challenge that pits us against our own nemesis; our own selves.  And when we emerge we emerge well-forged and whole.

If you have been to the dark place you know this.  If you have not you will never be able to know, or to judge until you seek and find your line.