During a 30-mile run in 105-degree heat, I passed the time reflecting on my goals. Several months earlier, I had asked God if I should write a book about running. And I heard a quiet intuitive voice that said: “But what have you accomplished?” Since then, I’ve prayed continually, “What do You want me to accomplish?”
Silence.
Meanwhile, injuries and illness have slowed my progress to a standstill.
I thought, “God isn’t telling me what to do. Perhaps my goals must come from inside. Maybe what I accomplish is less important than how I accomplish it. Maybe what counts is accomplishing something – anything – the right way, in cooperation with God. Goals are great, they’re terrific, but they’re ultimately just a catalyst for learning to train – and live – rightly. What counts isn’t recording a number on a board, but what my training does for me. What counts is training expansively.”
I figure that if I train right, I won’t have to worry about the results. With right effort, attitude, and guidance, I’ll do the right thing, and the right results will follow naturally.
More than anything, I want to train with the right feeling in my heart. That’s my goal. I’m a hundred percent concerned with finding that rich inner sense of rightness. A 37-minute 10K (at age 62) would mean little, if I couldn’t achieve it while holding expansive feelings in my heart. I can train my body only so much, but I can expand my heart boundlessly.
Willingness isn’t my obstacle; I’ve done months of brutal speedwork, and I’ve done many six- and seven-hour training runs when it served my inner goals. I “begin” inside and grow outwardly. The most real experiences I’ve had as a runner were deeply inward.
At the moment of death, it’s said that we soar inward and upward through subtle centers of consciousness in the spine – the fabled “tunnel of light.” Our life begins and ends within, and our truest guidance comes from inside. That guidance comes clearest when our minds and hearts are turned inward – calmly focused, centered, and listening.
Some of my fastest race times were achieved at the expense of my inner humanity. In those races, I stripped my gears to beat the clock, sacrificing everything that was humanly worthwhile. I became a brute running machine. In my view, a successful race is one where I “hold together” – where I succeed in persuading my body, heart, will and spirit to work in synchrony.
In one of my least successful races, I used my will to drive my body and heart indecently past the limits of what they were prepared for. I used will power to explode my engine, for the sake of achieving a “success” I hadn’t truly earned in training. After that race, the feelings in my heart were deeply disturbed; I was unhappy, and I knew that in every meaningful way, despite my modestly successful finishing time, I had failed.
In his book, Body, Mind, and Sport, John Douillard tells the story of an American who lived on an island in the South Pacific. One day, the American persuaded a native man to race him to the end of the beach. He said, “Ready, set, go!” and off he sprinted. Meanwhile, the native strolled calmly toward the finish line. “I won!” the American cried triumphantly. “No, I won,” the native said.
“What do you mean?”
“You got to the finish first. But I got there more beautifully.”
In the race where I drove my body past its abilities, I used will power, one of my God-given tools, to whip my body mercilessly. I ran fast, but I ran without beauty.
I’ve run races where I’ve finished with a heart that was more deeply expanded and loving at the finish than at the start. Those were true victories, even if I finished in the middle of the pack.
I race and train exclusively to that end. I don’t pretend that it should be other people’s goal. Running is a tapestry upon which each of us can weave the individual patterns of our dreams. Running is the richer for its eccentrics and its extremes; its beauties are endlessly varied.
Racing as outward goal? Or racing as inner celebration? From a spiritual perspective, the purpose of my training isn’t ultimately to run a sub-three-hour marathon or 37-minute 10K, but to “create myself” – to expand my confidence, inner strength, awareness, heart’s feelings, and power of positive attitude. These are joyful goals, whereas ego-driven goals are sterile, and leave me feeling empty and deprived. The ego is never satisfied, but the soul satisfies every human longing.
