David Shaw used to thinking running was pointless; now he thinks running is the point.
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The Good Men Project Sports asked why we run.
In this feature series, we share your answers.
This is from David Shaw:
It just came naturally. My parents told me that I used to roll to get around. Then it was on to crawling. Soon I was walking, and as soon as I could run, I did. Running felt good. It was only later that it occurred to me that it was a quicker way to get what I wanted go and where I wanted to be. It was a big improvement over rolling, crawling and walking.
I stopped enjoying running when it became associated with being forced to do what I didn’t want to do, when I didn’t want to do it. When I didn’t pay enough attention to what I was supposed to be doing and where I was supposed to be, oxygen debit was often the price. Running for the school bus sucked.
I went from running to where I wanted to be, to running to where I didn’t want to be, because I had spent too long being where I had run to be.
I graduated from High School in June 1970. Running wasn’t cool in my school. Nike wasn’t incorporated until May 1971. There was a cross country running team, but that was for those who were getting in shape to play basketball and those who couldn’t play football. Sprinting was in, but long distance running was what you did for punishment, if you screwed up on the practice field of some other sport.
I had a friend on the cross country team who insisted on wearing his running shoes to school. He said he bucked fashion for foot comfort. He said they were more fun to wear than leather. I guess he was on to something earlier than most.
Me? I devoted myself to being a sports fan. My school didn’t have male cheerleaders. I urged on others with my big mouth from the stands. I went on to relive my high school glory days by yelling at professional sportsmen on television from my couch.
I was forced back into running in my late twenties. I went for a nice hike up a small mountain, with my younger brother. On the way up my brother paused occasionally to enjoy a vista and frequently to wait for me to catch-up and to catch my breath.
It was time for me to get into better shape.
By then the running boon was in full swing. Joggers had became runners. Americans had began speaking in kilometers and buying shoes became an ecstatic experience for men. Once I could keep up with my brother hiking, I started to train for a 10K race.
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Running in races gave me all of the pageantry of being an athlete, without the need to be very athletic. There were cheering spectators, tee shirt uniforms and always someone to be faster than.
One time, for some reason that I don’t want to understand, I entered a race where only three other men showed up to compete. I lived in a rural area and the course followed a road that was in my neighborhood. By race day, I knew every twist and turn and dip and rise in that 4 miles. A gentleman that toed the starting line with me leaned over and whispered, “Let’s go out slow and bring it home fast.” I nodded my head in affirmation, feeling astonishment at being the target of a sport’s “psych out” attempt. I decided to do the opposite to try and demoralize the competition. I sprinted from the starting line. I eased up before each hill, to have the energy to look like my lungs weren’t burning with each ascent. I was almost giddy from the experience of leading the race. As I saw the finish line, I could hear my two young songs, yelling, “Daddy is winning, Daddy is winning” as they jumped up and down. I was a blur from then on.
Running took me to meditative states and problem solving states uninvited. It gave me rare moments of effortless movement and ample opportunity to suffer through questioning why in the world did I want to run in races or anywhere else, not come up with a good answer and to keep running anyway.
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I kept running by planning to run races. Many days I asked myself why I wanted to run today, when there is such many other things I would rather be or should be doing. “Oh yeah, I have a race coming up. It would be wrong to waste the registration fee that I’ve already paid.”
I was usually in the middle of the pack or behind the middle in races. They were still fun. I got some strange delight covering the same pavement as a world class athletes during two New York City Marathon runs and getting the word as to who had won, as I was half way done.
It is one of the few sports where you can compete at the same time as the elite. It is a sport where you can get vigorous applause no matter how you were doing. I never heard any runner in a race get booed.
Running took me to meditative states and problem solving states uninvited.
It gave me rare moments of effortless movement and ample opportunity to suffer through questioning why in the world did I want to run in races or anywhere else, not come up with a good answer and to keep running anyway.
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When I was diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease, most of my running transitioned to treadmills. I paid my registration fee for a race here and there to motivate myself out the door. “I can’t let that registration money go to waste. Got to run.”
My last race might have been my last race, but I hope not. I did not prepare much for it at all. I just knew that I could cover 6.2 mies in a day and knew I would feel good celebrating that fact. Race day was a gorgeous day. I had more energy than I was using, but the Parkinson’s disease kept me shuffling.I just couldn’t make my feet move any faster. It was great. The course was through the small city that I live near. I owned the streets that I usually had to share with other cars. I joked with volunteers along the way. I pretended to be close to quitting and would comically beg for encouragement to give me the will to go on.
As the comedy was worn thin by the out and back course, I started to pay more attention to the applause and encouragement of bystanders and then other runners who were running back as I was still heading out. In most sports, players past their prime or otherwise out of shape get polite applause, or silence or shouts of scorn. I had never run so poorly and had never been cheered so frequently.
I used to think that running when you weren’t late was pointless. Now that it is getting late, I believe that running is the point and there is nowhere that you need to go.
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I’ve often thought that running road race spectators are all cheering on moving and breathing. I allowed myself to soak in the joy of still being able to move and breathe. Comedy dim, philosophizing wearing thin, something unexpected happened.
My medication suddenly kicked in.
I tried my feet. They had stopped shuffling. I was running.
Running is technically defined as locomotion where both feet are momentarily off of the ground. More than that was happening. I seemed to be flying. I was back in the race. All I needed was someone I could pass. I pushed and I pushed feeling a familiar thrill, biding my time to blow by somebody. The Universe decided that it had delivered enough joy for one day, as I saw the fourth from the last runner cross the finish line in the distance. There was no one left to pass. I gave it all I had anyway. The guy at the microphone said “here he comes finishing strong.” As I gasped for breath a young man came up to me and asked if I minded being interviewed. I tried to say that this would be fine, but got a little skittish when my words came out slurred. I knew it wasn’t a stroke, but rather a Parkinson disease symptom. I celebrated my speech clearing up quickly to answer the question, “so why did you run today?” I spoke of the benefits of physical exercise in managing anxiety, depression and degenerative neurologic diseases under medical supervision.
I used to think that running when you weren’t late was pointless. Now that it is getting late, I believe that running is the point and there is nowhere that you need to go. To enjoy life is to enjoy its flow.
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Browse the over thirty posts we have thus far Good Men Project Sports’ Why We Run Series here.
#30: Every Day << >> #32 My Heart Is No Longer Broken
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Photo Credit: AP Photo/Altaf Qadri