Peterson Ridge Rumble is a 20 mile run with a 40 mile option that takes place on trails above the town of Sisters. It is unique in that dogs can run with their owners on the 20 mile version. Summer my dog was beside herself with excitement at the start. So many people to run with, and dogs too! She is not the best mannered trail runner though as she constantly tried to smell other dogs, and did not take the hint from some that they were not interested. Some dogs were so focused on the run, they were little black machines, a study in stride and concentration.
Vivid images of this run still spring to mind a week out now. Mas frio! Lazy snow flurries drifting through the pines. Extensive trees stretching unfathomable distances. Dark forest beckoning, foot paths extensive and spaghetti like. A hard isolated terrain, made lonely by the slate gray sky, blanched of all color except endless pine green and dull brown. A flurry of activity at an intersection, the leader and eventual winner leaping past me downhill as I still proceed up - thoughts of home far away as the race time grows longer, the purging of sin, the cleansing of my soul, the renewal of real self here on the cold mountain where time has stretched endlessly before and endlessly after, the bounding young runner enthralled to the trail, now and later, when he sits and can move no more...only in his imagination, in his memory is he taken back to an event that seems to have occurred just yesterday...the slight felt in grade school harbored still by the 80 year old grandfather, a cut as keen today as on the day it was dealt. For this reason we pray, for forgiveness, to be more like Christ, more fully alive in our soft heart than we ever were reaping the fruits of this world.
So that is why I run. I won't be the first across the line and for some that means not winning the race. But winning the race is more than first place. The battle is greater than that, and sometimes the battle is to renew yourself, away from the world that tries to define you.
This was a training run for the Eugene Marathon, a chance to dial in a state of mind and some fitness and confidence. For a long time I've felt like a thinner faster runner lurked inside me, I just need to find and pull him to the outside. I think some progress has been made in that regard over the past few weeks as I am running now to my breath, rather than my legs. How my breathing feels dictates how fast I can go - slight exertion is where I want to keep it for over the 26 miles. A few times I feel like I am flying and remember a time from childhood when my legs spun so fast beneath me that I ran right out from under them. What a good feeling that is! To go as fast as you want and not be afraid. And that is an essential point to learn - that there is a psychologically interesting fear of fast.
The finish line was snowing and cold. I got a pair of cool socks and Summer got a pig ear. The food line was a formidable Mexican feast, but between juggling socks and water bottle, the burrito I made fell apart in my hands and onto the ground, quickly scooped up by Summer, good compensation for her losing her pig ear the minute she got it. Looking forward to Eugene Marathon next week. It should have solemn inspiring energy with the recent Boston Marathon bombing.
Vivid images of this run still spring to mind a week out now. Mas frio! Lazy snow flurries drifting through the pines. Extensive trees stretching unfathomable distances. Dark forest beckoning, foot paths extensive and spaghetti like. A hard isolated terrain, made lonely by the slate gray sky, blanched of all color except endless pine green and dull brown. A flurry of activity at an intersection, the leader and eventual winner leaping past me downhill as I still proceed up - thoughts of home far away as the race time grows longer, the purging of sin, the cleansing of my soul, the renewal of real self here on the cold mountain where time has stretched endlessly before and endlessly after, the bounding young runner enthralled to the trail, now and later, when he sits and can move no more...only in his imagination, in his memory is he taken back to an event that seems to have occurred just yesterday...the slight felt in grade school harbored still by the 80 year old grandfather, a cut as keen today as on the day it was dealt. For this reason we pray, for forgiveness, to be more like Christ, more fully alive in our soft heart than we ever were reaping the fruits of this world.
So that is why I run. I won't be the first across the line and for some that means not winning the race. But winning the race is more than first place. The battle is greater than that, and sometimes the battle is to renew yourself, away from the world that tries to define you.
This was a training run for the Eugene Marathon, a chance to dial in a state of mind and some fitness and confidence. For a long time I've felt like a thinner faster runner lurked inside me, I just need to find and pull him to the outside. I think some progress has been made in that regard over the past few weeks as I am running now to my breath, rather than my legs. How my breathing feels dictates how fast I can go - slight exertion is where I want to keep it for over the 26 miles. A few times I feel like I am flying and remember a time from childhood when my legs spun so fast beneath me that I ran right out from under them. What a good feeling that is! To go as fast as you want and not be afraid. And that is an essential point to learn - that there is a psychologically interesting fear of fast.
The finish line was snowing and cold. I got a pair of cool socks and Summer got a pig ear. The food line was a formidable Mexican feast, but between juggling socks and water bottle, the burrito I made fell apart in my hands and onto the ground, quickly scooped up by Summer, good compensation for her losing her pig ear the minute she got it. Looking forward to Eugene Marathon next week. It should have solemn inspiring energy with the recent Boston Marathon bombing.
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