It’s not an easy answer, this one. It’s been posed before in this space.
Truth is, for twenty-three years – 1987 to 2010 – I didn’t race. In fact, aside from the occasional tennis game in the’90s and early oughts and a memorable broomball match at Mohonk Mountain Lodge in New Paltz, NY, (our team won 2-0 and I scored both goals!) I didn’t do much in the way of competitive sports.
Instead I ran. But in the manner of Confucius, who famously said, “The superior man has nothing to compete for.” That the spirit of competition itself fouls the purity of sport.
Last week (Aug. 19-23) my mother sent a card to M and me celebrating our 24th wedding anniversary. Inside, she’d stowed a small trove of daily newspaper clippings she’d kept for me – some for as long as fifty years.
One, I couldn’t believe. In a one-column headline, set in 18- to 20-point type were my names in lower case style: Larry O’Connor. The second and third lines told readers that I’d scored a hat trick in an ice hockey game. As I recall I was probably about sixteen years old.
I had totally forgotten that at one time I had been a young competitive athlete. My mom, God bless her, didn’t forget. (Word to the wise: No one loves you quite like a mother.)
Is it about approval then? So strong is that need for parental approval. Run, sure, but race and take a chance that what you will accomplish will again fill that breast of pride, create another clipping, one that your mother will snip out and hold for you, stir the blood like nothing on Earth.
You could call it pride. Or you could call it a mother’s love.
Of course, I’d feel her love if I were to return to simply running – not racing – for my life. But frankly I’ve come to like the idea of the clipping. And if God is good, it won’t be my last.
Next: Running for Your Life: Managing Pain
