The Journey is all

Something has switched for me. Instead of trying to squeeze in daily (or almost daily) exercise, I am back to training. I’ve circled a marathon date on my calendar, now instead of working toward some ambiguous level of overall fitness, I have a specific goal. A goal that requires a significant voyage of preparation, some pain, ups, downs, and many, many miles.

(Me, my mom, my brother after Chicago 2002--if you see the '94 in the lower right it's because my mom didn't know how to set up her camera)

In 2002, I ran a decent marathon. (Now, 2002 doesn’t seem long ago to me; I’m 40. But In 2002, Paul Rabil was in high school, Bill Tierney still had 7 seasons left at Princeton). I ran 3:11:05 in Chicago that year (7:17 to 7:18 pace for 26.2 miles). The Boston cut-off was 3:10:59. I missed by six seconds.

Over the next year, my focus was those six seconds as I trained for the Philadelphia marathon. I wanted to get back to those last miles—put myself in the same place on the same pace at mile 24, but then grind out just six more seconds.

In hindsight, that focus was wrong. Each marathon, each athletic season is its own journey. Past success can influence future success but doesn’t guarantee you will find yourself in a similar situation. In preparation for Chicago every day was about the entirety of the marathon. For Philly, it was narrowed to 6 seconds, and I lost track of the whole 26.2 miles.

I recall reading an article by Mark Rippetoe that Greg Gurenlian had linked to on twitter. Mark was reviewing CrossFit, while discussing the difference between exercise and training, he wrote:

Exercise is fun today. Well, it may not be fun, but you've convinced yourself to do it today because you perceive that the effect you produce today is of benefit to you today…

In contrast, Training is about the process you undertake to generate a specific result later, maybe much later, the workouts of which are merely the constituents of the process. Training may even involve a light day that you perceive to be a waste of time if you only consider today.

Training also gives your mind the joy of purpose. Training looks at a goal and creates a voyage. As C.P. Cavafy writes in his oft-quoted poem (if you haven’t read it in its entirety, google it and get to it):

Ithaka gave you the marvelous journey.
Without her you would not have set out.
She has nothing left to give you now.

One journey you might have before you right now is this (fast approaching) season. If your destination is a league title, state championship, Memorial Day weekend, remember that it doesn’t come, doesn’t exist without the trip. The teammates beside you, the groundball scuffles, man up/man down competitions, bus rides, wall ball, all that is the journey and the journey is all.

“Keep Ithaka always in your mind”

jimfenzel.com