To get the most out of oneself requires more than the average man can withstand. To suffer more deeply. To create a false god. To endure hell. To smile through it all.
One must designate their every waking action to their craft. Trimming away the unnecessary distractions, relationships, and sometimes even their job. The only priority in life is the aspiration of greatness. The hope of excelling past mediocrity and the average man. To transcend limitations of the human mind, body, and spirit. To strive toward the personal version of immortality in which greatness seeks.
Of course, they will eventually die. However, greatness never dies. Socrates, Pluto, Hemingway, their words will live on forever. Da Vinci, Michelangelo, Van Gough, their art will strike nerves for all of time. Oh, but the athletes.
Athletes are artists not by brush on canvas, or by chisel on stone. Athletes are poetry in motion, masters of their craft. And they won’t leave a piece of tangible art behind. Their notable and pain staking and heart wrenching work will never be displayed in a museum and a sportswriter can never emulate their own distinct art with simple words. Records and medals don’t reflect the style of an athlete. As style is the difference, a way of doing, a way of being done.
I suppose that is what makes an athletic performance special. An athlete’s performance is fleeting and short lived, much like the peak years of the athlete, much like life if you really think about it. All the hours, days, weeks, months, and even years all culminating to a singular point in time in which an athlete can showcase their performance.
I’ve been running seriously for a full decade now. In high school we trained on Boyd Kennedy Road almost every day and every single one of those miles has accumulated in the cells of my being. All the speed sessions in college and the long runs in the orchards, my legs remember. And all the hypoxic miles in Gunnison, Colorado, my mortal body has absorbed.
This past summer I have given everything to running. I don’t have a real job, I travel often and spend my free time at the family cabin in Idaho. I usually wear the same clothes as many days as I can stand as the cabin doesn’t have laundry.
However, this current situation has allowed for the best summer training I have ever done. I set the Fastest Known Time on the Ruby Crest Trail breaking the record by 16min, something I have always dreamed of doing. I won a National Title, also something I have always dreamed of doing. I had the opportunity to go to Europe and run a race in Austria, I had never left the country before this summer.
In 1 weeks, time, I will toe the line of my first 100-miler. To me the 100-mile distance is the pinnacle of trail running. After a full decade of running, all the hours, days, weeks, months and years, I intend to put on a performance. Good or bad, fast or slow, beautiful or ugly, a performance, nonetheless. A star momentarily raging through the night sky.
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