I just came across this old story from a few years back. But with the recent events in Tibet I thought it might be of interest to those of you who are really bored.
The Ultimate Runner’s High
Runners are a different breed. And there is this fundamental question that they can not satisfactorily answer. Why? Why starve your body and mind of much needed oxygen, pound the joints beyond recognition, compress already compressed discs, while running around in circles (some bigger than others) day after day and never actually getting anywhere. And for what reason? There is not a good answer. Some may offer some lame excuse like – it is good for you; or - it brings a long life. But then why, pray tell, did Jim Fix keel over and die while running just a couple years after writing his best seller – The Complete Book of Running. You see, there is no good reason to run. The number of allotted heartbeats in each man is known exactly by God – few orthodox theologians would disagree. It so follows, then, that every time one runs and speeds up the heart, he has just used up a huge share of the number of beats remaining. Using up those allotted heartbeats can’t prolong your life. And then there is the well established fact that running is as addicting as things get.
I know a guy who sort of innocently got started in high school on the track team. But the wimpy three miles, which seemed so far when he first started, was soon not enough. He went for a 10 K --- Not far enough. Half marathon ---- Baby stuff. Marathon number one ----- What’s the big deal? Marathon number two ----There must be something more. This joker had to sign up to run the Pike’s Peak marathon to the top of the peak at 14,110. It didn’t stop there. He decided to run around Mt. Hood in a day. Addict. The surgeon general should start putting warning labels on every pair of Nike running shoes. Why did this joker do all this? Don’t ask. There is no good reason.
So why run? Now perhaps – just perhaps - there is one reason that might suffice. If one was training to climb Mt. Everest, that would be a satisfactory answer as to Why run? But why climb Mt. Everest? This offers even less of a satisfactory answer. But perhaps, just perhaps, if someone is visiting a village deep in the jungles of Africa and is bitten by a black mamba, and has only three hours to live provided he receives not the anti-venom, and the only anti-venom is 10 miles away back in camp. Perhaps then, a friend who has spent countless hours running in circles might come in handy. Indeed, it is every runners dream to find a productuive use for his mindless skill, but the chance of such an occurrence is much too unlikely to justify the millions of laps run and hours simply thrown away.
So why do I run? No excuse. No explanation. I just run.
So you see, since the time I ran around Mt. Hood, there has been little to challenge me. I took up biking to see more terrain. Tried swimming, but it reminded me too much of what hell might be like (seeing nothing, hearing nothing but gasping, isolated, all the while feeling like you were about to drown). So I still ran --- looking for the next challenge. Going for a greater distance was out of the question - my joints come to a grinding screeching halt when I go anything over three or four miles. So what could I do? How could anything compare to Pike’s Peak, Mt. Hood, and the other adventures in the idiocy of my youth. But suddenly in the most unlikely of places – there it was.
We were just a little below 13,000 feet, driving down a street lined on both sides with the old Tibetan style white and black three story buildings – white washed buildings with windows that had about a foot wide swath of black paint all around them. Virtually every dwelling in Tibet is this same color. But then, suddenly to my left, the buildings had come to an end and there was a sight that didn’t belong. Not at all. In this impoverished part of the country, in a city completely inaccessible to train, boat, or aircraft, at an altitude fit only for yaks and airplanes - there to my left was the most beautiful sport stadium I had ever seen in China. Brand spanking new. Rubberized asphalt track without a cleat mark on it. And a lawn --- a beautiful, immaculate lawn that looked as though it had never been stepped upon. What a sight! I did some mental crunching and figured out what the deal was:
The Chinese had built this so they could lay hold to a new Guinness record -- the highest stadium in the World. There is also a big campaign going on here in the country to develop the impoverished western regions. Here they could develop and set a record. It is just what people barely eeking out a living on the land and making less that 10 bucks a month need.. The capital Lhasa, was just a tad lower than La Paz down in South America, so the much needed Stadium would have to be built here in Shigaze. And here it sat.
This excited the runner in me. A mile. I suddenly knew what I had been born for. A high altitude experiment. How fast could I run a mile at two and a half miles above sea level? Exactly, how fast could I run a mile on the highest track in the world? I had to find out. There would be no sleeping until I could find this out.
“So who wants to go running?” I offered to the 14 others who were with us on this expedition. Takers were few. But there were two brainless chaps. A guy named Tad, who has the same last name as I, and a guy named John Weidler – a runner. No, don’t ask him why either.
We trotted the mile or so over to the track, knowing it might be a hard sell to have the caretakers let us onto this picture perfect track in this cosmetically picture perfect highest stadium in the world.
We got to the gate, and to our surprise they were warm and friendly, and were more than welcoming. Perhaps it was because they were bored stiff watching a stadium that never has any competitions. I asked if it were the highest in the world, and the old gateman beamed as he replied that it indeed was. We asked if we might be so blessed as to be able to try to run an English mile on the highest track in the world. He went to fetch the keys.
He unlocked the main gates and escorted us out to the track. I had never run on such a nice track anywhere. A small crowd came from out of nowhere to watch the crazy foreigners.
Back in the glorious days of youth I had run a personal best in the mile of 4:40 and that was only because I was showing off for my wife to be - Janie, who was looking on. At this stage in life, with my wife looking on, I think I could possibly run a 5:00 mile – and if my child needed the black mamba anti-venom within that time….. No, I take that back….. if my three children were all bitten and needed the the black mamba anti-venom within that time. So I figured 6:00 was an attainable goal. Tad wasn’t too reassuring. “We are really high here. Don’t go and kill yourself trying...”
“Runners to your marks, set, go.” I pushed the button on my stopwatch and we were off. Over the years I have gotten good at knowing exactly how to pace myself. If I want to run a 90 second 400 meters (6 minute a mile pace) I generally can hit it within a second without even looking at my watch (unfortunately there is little use for such a skill) so that was the pace I took off with – in full confidence I could make it.
But something happened. I was three hundred meters into the first lap when rigermortus began to set in. My legs had been thoroughly depleted of oxygen and when that happens, scientists have recently discovered, the body simply starts pumping liquid lead into the legs to fill the vacuum. My arms tightened up and knotted. I felt like I did when I was in junior high and they said there was going to be a 6 minute run for the presidential fitness test. Every boy took off in a sprint to impress the girls on the side lines finishing the first lap in under a minute, and then quickly slowed to a pace slightly faster that the proverbial tortoise barely finishing the second lap before the six minutes expired.
To put in mildly, I was sucking wind, but there was no wind to suck. There was no air up here. I tried to shout to Tad that 6 minutes was now effectively out of the question, but at this point shouting was out of the question. I was just trying to breathe. All my efforts were diverted to trying to keep my legs moving. It was as though they were cast in quick drying cement. They wanted to stop. Maybe I should stop and just time myself in the 50 meters. I now dropped from a 6:00 a mile pace ran the second lap at an 8:00 pace just trying to get my heart rate below 400. That didn’t even work. My new revised goal was to pick it back up and to try and run a 7:00 minute mile. On the third lap, I realized that this too was now out of reach. So my new goal had now become whatever time happened to be on my watch when I finished the fourth stupid lap. I came around the last turn, kicked it in with my last ounce of strength, and then stood there hand on my knees for the next several minutes trying to catch my breath. 7:15. I had run a faster mile the month after I had gotten the cast off my leg after a broken femur. I had averaged faster miles in my last marathon.
The pain for such a slow time was eased when I met the top Tibetan and one of the top marathoners in the country. He said that he runs 10,000 meters in 30 minutes at sea level, and that he runs it in 40 up here on the roof of the world.
Tad and John W. also were delighted to have been able to conduct such an experiment. The three of us trotted back to the guesthouse in the comradery that only senseless runners can have. And then it dawned on me. Perhaps this is why I ran after all. A brief moment of senseless comradery. Such idiotic spontaneity can only be found in runners. We were members of The Fellowship of the Pain. And such sweet communion can make three guys fell like they are on top of the world.
