Running in the Dark

“When we become aware that we do not have to escape our pains, but that we can mobilize them into a common search for life, those very pains are transformed from expressions of despair into signs of hope.”

Henri Nouwen

As summer yields to fall and my marathon training program really hits stride, I find myself running in the dark. Like a lot of runners, I have to maintain a pretty regimented schedule in order to account for all the training required to get through the 26.2. This regiment becomes even more crucial in order to balance my life between family, work, friends, and community.

Since this is my blog, I can put in whatever potentially uninteresting content I want to, so skip the next section if you’ve no curiosity about how a runner like me has to operate.

MORNING

4:00am: Wake up, feed dog, and get to coffee pot that was preset night before

4:15: Do personal email and Facebook and get lunch together

5:00am: Load up car with enough stuff to summit Everest (gym bag, work clothes, briefcase filled with consumer electronics and books, lunch) and drive to Lifetime Fitness

5:30am: Run Lake Zorinsky

6:30am: Shower at club and get ready for work. Drive to office listening to extremely loud rock music

7:00am: Get to office. Take deep breath and change roles

11:30am: Eat lunch (I do six small meals a day, so my lunch bag is like a clown car. Food just keeps coming out in a long ridiculous procession. I get grief for this pretty regularly from my inconsiderate co-workers, some of whom may read this and repent)

AFTERNOON

4:00pm: Leave work. Take deep breath and change roles

4:30am: Play with Aiden

5:30pm: Dinner

6:30pm: Play with Aiden

7:30: Start bath/bedtime process (Catherine does most of this with me as backup quarterback/referee/EMT if a fight breaks out and/or one of them is injured)

8:30pm: Check in with email and Facebook

9:00pm: Go to bed and read

9:15pm: Nod off and drop book on face. Wake up briefly in shock. Turn out lights

Now that it is fall the workouts around Lake Zorinsky take place in the dark. This darkness persists until a small band of light appears on the horizon at the end of the run. I wore my headlamp the first time I had to run in the dark a few weeks ago, but don't like it so have abandoned the practice. Now I wear a dorky orange construction worker vest, as most of my running clothes are black in honor of Robert Smith. One of my primary running goals for this marathon is to train smart, and the first part of this run takes place on streets. Being run over or by a car or hit by an early morning cyclist is not consistent with the goal of training smart, thus the dorky vest is a required piece of gear. There is also a herd of deer at the west end of Zorinsky that sometimes crash across the trail if a runner or cyclist spooks them, and I want them to see me too.

I can hear the deer moving around as I run through some of the more densely forested areas of the park. The first time I ran in the dark this season I was convinced the snapping branches were being caused by Jason Voorhees. He never really ran in those movies, so I think on a middle distance run I could get away, but who knows, he may have done P90X or is training for a fall marathon. He probably walks at about a 20 minute/mile pace and I am at about 8:10s on shorter distances, but he can hide really well and I don’t think ever pulls a hamstring or gets an IT band injury.

I expected to be the only weirdo down there, but there are actually some other regulars, who I assume are also doing fall marathons and have schedules similar or even more complicated than mine. There are no lights down in the park so you can’t see other runners until you are very close. You will hear the sound of shoes on the trail or perhaps see a headlamp before you see the other person and exchange a “good morning” or simply a wave if you are burning it and breathing hard.

As I have been running in the dark for a few weeks now, I realize that my eyes adjust about a mile in, and that I can see the basic shape of things. The darkness bothered me at first because I was afraid I would trip on something and get an injury that would prevent me from doing the marathon. I thought about how sometimes in life we find ourselves running in the dark, processing worry, fear, doubt, and emotional injury. I have experienced this processing recently, especially in my career, where I question if what I am doing at work is what I was designed to do.  Pain from my life story has also surfaced, and I don’t know what is in front of me or off to the side in the forest. Sometimes in “grass is always greener” moments I want to flee what I do for a living or numb myself to the pain.  As I ran the other morning, I remembered a line from Dante's Divine Comedy.

“In the middle of my life I awoke in a dark wood, where the true way was wholly lost.”

Perhaps the undergrad majors in English and Philosophy were not a total wash after all. 

I find solace in the fact that I can still see small pieces of what is in front of me and that just as the sun eventually rises in the natural world it will rise again in the world of my heart and spirit. Sometimes this solace occurs when I pass another runner and remember that running in the dark is a shared human experience. I understand in those moments that there are brief, or sometimes long, periods when we can experience the dark together.  I can reorient myself in the dark when I remember that God calls us into a “dark night of the soul” in order to prepare us to freely give compassion to others. We are able to give grace and compassion to others because we have experienced darkness and the need for these things in our own lives.

The fact that the sun will rise can occur at a fleeting moment during the day when I realize I am using my gifts and talents alongside others to accomplish something greater than myself in the world of non-profit healthcare. Pain from the past is redeemed when I play with my son and I see the joy in his face.

The other day I thought about the title of Hemingway book “The Sun Also Rises,” and this brought me confidence that even though I am at times running in the dark, my sight will adjust enough so I can navigate the questions, doubts, and fears. Eventually a small band of light will appear on the horizon. I am comforted when I eventually cross paths with others who are experiencing the same darkness, but are committed to moving forward one step at a time.

Credits:
My wife Catherine created the amazing new graphic for my blog.  I am thankful to live with an artist because otherwise the header would have remained pretty lame and uninteresting.

Thanks to Rachel C for posting the Nouwen quote in her status. I updated this entry because of how well it fit and how great it was that we were in the same frame this week.