The Man Who Knew Too Much

I am privileged to be a member of a Running Club which contains so many remarkable members.  The men and women I run with are so varied in their backgrounds, dispositions, and abilities that, should a runner want some good company out on the road, there is always somebody to oblige.  Morris can remember more jokes than I thought anyone could possibly have heard, and as the miles build up, oxygenated blood seems to plumb the depths of his memory more and more thoroughly.  Anthony has run 37 marathons at last count, including an impressive string of successive Boston Marathons; he loves to talk so much while he runs that Morris jokes his jaw muscle is connected to his legs.  (When he was asked several years ago, "Are we going to run, or talk about it?" he replied, "Why do I have to choose?")  Fred has 47 marathons in his past, including two only five days apart, but rarely talks while running and never talks while racing (as I learned at Tybee Island many years ago.)

And then there is Glenda, who read the latest Newsletter wherein I watched the weather front approaching my last marathon in agonizing detail (see blog post of December 16) and commented drolly that she thought I was The Man Who Knew Too Much.  That's just like Glenda, who actually reads my newsletters and unfailingly thanks me for putting them together - 135 of them now, since the Club began in 1995.  Glenda decided out of the blue in 2004 that she wanted to run a marathon.  There were some doubtful comments from some quarters since Glenda had raced no farther than 5-K at the time.  But some of us saw the determination in this woman, who had just turned 60, and gave her a few pointers.  We both ran the Richmond Marathon in November, she and I, and she ran an incredible 4:34:40, only (she later discovered) a little slower than her Boston Qualifying time of 4:30.  So the next year she ran the Victoria Marathon in British Columbia, qualified handily, and ran Boston the following year.  I don't think I have ever witnessed so swift an ascent to Boston.   

I am indeed The Man Who Knows Too Much sometimes.  (I even know Glenda's time in Richmond!)  And I know the predicted weather from four or five weather apps on my iPhone, my exact mileage and pace at any given time during a run, my planned distance, my cadence, my approximate heartbeat, the location of the afternoon running group when I have arrived late and must catch up to them, and where that patch of ice will be on Lower Lake Road.  Some of these things are good to know (e.g. patch of ice) but others can distract us from the things we should be discovering along the way, like the aroma of pine needles over by the Biological Station, the light skim of ice on Harris Lake, that indomitable oak tree on Fifth Street that is still clutching all its brown leaves in January.

Thanks for inadvertently making me think again about how and why I run, Glenda.

This year I resolve to know less.  So that I can discover more.