Lessons From Boyhood
I was once a boy. My thing was football. I had David Beckham on my wall.
These days, however, it’s runners like Eliud Kipchoge, Kilian Jornet, Rickey Gates and Courtney Dauwalter I most look up to.
Today, whilst running, I was suddenly aware of my lost dreams… and my lost shamelessness in pursuing them and idolising those who I most look upto. Why do I not have pictures, torn out of newspapers, on my wall? Instead I have clean white walls, flowers, TAO symbols and all other signs of prestine, sensible adulthood.
The truth is, I’m still a young, hungry boy, looking for something greater, newer, wilder, more special than myself. I want to be reminded of that, to feel it, experience it, enjoy it, every day.
What more is there to life than that?
Something stops me though… the knowledge that this sudden inspiration will also die… that I don’t really wish to be like someone else… that everything is fine just as it is…
Well that might be true, but the 2 are not mutually exclusive I believe!
Whatever happened to those tired evenings of disappointment after losing a football match that went deep into extra time? Whatever happened to the extreme lactic acid build up post-cross country race? Whatever happened to knowing (simply KNOWING) that running for some period of every day is good for me, and will make life far more fulfilling…
I used to run after school. No one told me to. I never timed it. No one was watching. I just did it.
I used to run a long time alone when it rained on some evenings; when it snowed; when on holiday at the beach. Seasons, new terrains, romantic stories, adventurous opportunities, inspired me.
Obsessed is the person who dreams, talks, plans, plots, prepares, but never actually DOES!
Enlightened is the one who does his duty; no more and no less. To live as one would fry a small fish (as the TAO reiterates).
My lessons from boyhood tell me that reality/life/the human experience comes down to what you do consistently every day. Then, and only then, do you CONSIST of that thing…
From a measurable (sport sciencey perspective) it also makes sense - for all the nerds out there…
A typical Marathon training plan, for instance, advises rest days even on the most hardcore weeks, and many more relaxed weeks before and after the event itself. Point being that if one would average out the daily distance advised for serious professional runners, it’d still look rather modest (around 10 kilometres per day is my current guesstimate)…
What a relief. To be modest, to be average, to do a little bit every day and incrementally improve your life in such a sustainable and honest way…
That’s what I did as a boy. That’s what my boyhood, among other things, has taught me…
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