The Dead and the Running

"I saw tail lights last night in a dream about my old life

Everybody leaves so why wouldn't you?"

-The Gaslight Anthem, "Great Expectations"

Runners are two people. They exist as the person and the runner. Something about running competitively causes this subtle duality to emerge. Call it an alter ego or whatever you want, but the simple fact that the farther down the road a runner goes, the runner becomes someone separate from their standard self. Nate the Runner has become a separate entity from Nate the Person. It's not more or less ideal, it's just different, a new person with different attitudes about things. The more I observe runners at my level and above, the more I have come to realize this.

And when a runner quits, that other self dies.

It's a sport where the attrition rate is high, and we are familiar with this kind of quasi-death.

Still, whenever I hear of someone who has hung up their spikes for good, without seeing things to their end, I always get the same feeling, albeit weaker, as I feel when I hear about someone who died before their time.

But they still are in the land of the living, possibly more so than those of us who claim to be hanging on. No matter how much you try to invest yourself in it, and no matter how you identify yourself, running is something you do, not something you are. Part of me doesn't know that, and part of me is still fighting to stay alive, even if attrition and a lack of heart cuts down all those around me. And I know that letting that part of me die would be the easy solution, and I have never been one to take that option.

And I know that those who do quit will drag that corpse forever.

Also, prayers are requested for victims of the Haitian earthquake. Thank you.