“Poetry, music, forests, oceans, solitude – they were what developed enormous spirit & strength. I came to realize that spirit, as much as or more than physical conditioning, had to be stored up before races”. Herb Elliott
Running the NY City marathon is a lifelong dream for many runners. You have been storing up spirit for NY for a long time – through other marathons, through your career as a marathon runner, through your desire to run this race, through your willingness to have had the discipline to beat the heat & cold, the dark & the social resistance, the disappointments & the successes, the bad GIT moments & the frustrations, the obstructions, the joys, the people; meeting the demands of job & life – in short all the moments have either prepared or slowed you down for this moment & it all now lies in the moment by moment decisions you make along these last few days.
I ask you to consider an approach that goes way beyond ego – an approach that cannot be held captive in mediocrity by the subterfuges & constructs that so much of everyday life holds, because it lies beyond their influence.
I ask you to create a race time span that may be used as an epitaph to a marathon runner – one that you may be proud of yes, but more; one that will remind you of a series of unforgettable moments – etched into your heart & soul as the most enjoyable doing, a process that you wanted never to end. Imagine & pre-experience a time of unbelievable, other worldly experience – something so melodious, so in tune with a rich life’s rhythms, so in vibrational harmony with your soul, that it needs not description nor explanation, only a statement perhaps like this: “You would have had to have been there, in order to understand.” This followed by a smile so deep, so eye-wellingly emotional as to leave no doubt to the observer that self-transcendence has taken place.
Can you do that for yourself? You many runners, whom I have observed for so long, have done it for me – I ask you to do it for you.
Running the NY City marathon is a lifelong dream for many runners. You have been storing up spirit for NY for a long time – through other marathons, through your career as a marathon runner, through your desire to run this race, through your willingness to have had the discipline to beat the heat & cold, the dark & the social resistance, the disappointments & the successes, the bad GIT moments & the frustrations, the obstructions, the joys, the people; meeting the demands of job & life – in short all the moments have either prepared or slowed you down for this moment & it all now lies in the moment by moment decisions you make along these last few days.
I ask you to consider an approach that goes way beyond ego – an approach that cannot be held captive in mediocrity by the subterfuges & constructs that so much of everyday life holds, because it lies beyond their influence.
I ask you to create a race time span that may be used as an epitaph to a marathon runner – one that you may be proud of yes, but more; one that will remind you of a series of unforgettable moments – etched into your heart & soul as the most enjoyable doing, a process that you wanted never to end. Imagine & pre-experience a time of unbelievable, other worldly experience – something so melodious, so in tune with a rich life’s rhythms, so in vibrational harmony with your soul, that it needs not description nor explanation, only a statement perhaps like this: “You would have had to have been there, in order to understand.” This followed by a smile so deep, so eye-wellingly emotional as to leave no doubt to the observer that self-transcendence has taken place.
Can you do that for yourself? You many runners, whom I have observed for so long, have done it for me – I ask you to do it for you.
Bobby McGee
Posts
I think it's that deep, moving, emotional finish-line look that motivates many spectators to train for their first marathon/events. Some will then race & yet miss that emotional connection they'd seen others have and wonder what was missing.
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