“Who I am is no mystery. There’s no need to tap my phone or open my mail. No necessity to submit me to psychoanalysis. No call to investigate my credit rating. Nothing gained by invading my privacy. There is, in fact, no privacy to invade. Because like all human beings I have no privacy. Who I am is visible for all to see.’
“When I was young, I knew who I was and tried to become someone else. I was born a loner. I came into this world with an instinct for privacy, a desire for solitude and an aversion to loud voices, to slamming doors and to my fellow man. I was born with the dread that someone would punch me in the nose or, even worse, put his arm around me.
But I refused to be that person. I wanted to belong. Wanted to become part of the herd, any herd. When you are shy and tense and self-conscious, when you are thin and scrawny and have an overbite and a nose that takes up about one third of your body surface, you want friends, you want to join with others. My problem was not individuality, but identity. I was more of an individual than I could handle. I had to identify with a group. ”
RUNNING & BEING, The Total Experience. Dr. George Sheehan, 1978 Simon and Schuster
Leafing through one of my favorite books this morning. I had loaned it to Justin Mollak a while back and he returned it a couple of days ago. More on Justin in a moment.
Dr. George Sheehan has always been in my estimation the one true Run Guru. And while I’ve read several hundred books on our sport, it was George that made the best descriptions that I identified with the most. If you are in need of a summer read, do go to the library or kindle or whatever and either reconnect or discover for the first time what so many of us feel but are unable to put into such eloquent words.
Justin ran Grandma’s Marathon on Saturday and delivered a fine 2:39:06. Jason Zakaras was right behind in 2:39:23. Lily Kaftan scored a huge pr running a very solid 3:11:34. My old buddy and a Team Nebraska mate back in the early aughts, Tracy Lokken finished 25th overall running 2:21:34, pretty fast for his 47 years of age.
Luka Thor ran the USA Men’s Half Marathon National Championships component of the race. Luka finished in 1:07:30 for 77th overall. Team Iowa Ablaze mate Jason Flogel ran 1:06:34 for 59th. My new buddy Mo Trafeh won in 1:01:16 and my old buddy Meb was 2nd in 1:01:22. The top 18 men were under 1:04:00, whew! Mike Morgan was 28th in 1:04:34. The Women’s Champs race saw a couple of locals competing with Lisa Baumert finishing 39th in 1:18:46 and Bridget Easley 50th in 1:20:34.
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