Saturday, July 29, 2006

Empathy

Empathy is one of the motivators I am relying on to grind out the running miles. Empathy for Gayle VanDurme. Do any readers know who he (yes, it is a male) is? Not likely. See he is a 54 year old who decided like me to train and compete in the Senior Olympics. I do not know him nor know anything about his history but I do know he is fast. At the 2005 National Senior Games in the 1500 meter final he ran 4:41:73. Ask around--that is fast. Why then should we feel any empathy for him? Because someone else ran 4:41:13. That is correct, after logging hundreds if not thousands of miles in training and running sprints, hills, steps and who knows what else Gayle qualified for the Nationals only to be beaten by 6 tenths of one second. He was less than one second from being the National Champion in the 1500 meters for men over 50. Can you imagine what that must feel like? Can you imagine the conversation within your head on the long ride back to your home state? All the "what if's" would be tough. So I think about that when I want to skip a run on a hot day. I think about it when I decide if I can make another mile. Don't get me wrong--I am not in this class of runner by a long shot. These guys are running MUCH faster than I ever have. But his effort and close second still motivates me as does a great song by John Mayer;

Some day I'll fly
Some day I'll soar!
Some day I'll be
Something much more!
'cause I'm bigger than my body
gives me credit for!

So, sure enough, my body will not soar with the guys running a metric mile in 4:41 but someday.....

9 comments:

Lerra said...

Ok...go ahead...you know you want to post some of your pictures from the Senior Olympics!

Ashley @ pure and lovely said...

ummm you listen to john mayer? you actuallyknow who that is? my parents dont know who that is, and they dont know what a blog is. im so impressed.

Roxy Wishum said...

This part is not so cool--I discovered John Mayer on APT. I was channel surfing and caught the end of his concert. He played the guitar for the longest and was AMAZING. APT never said who he was while I was watching so I looked their schedule up on the net then found his site and listened to some music. The next day I bought a CD and have listened lots. Great songwriter!

Lerra said...

See, you only think my dad is cool. Really he just acts like he is. :-)

Ashley @ pure and lovely said...

haha! looks like he just happens across some lucky situations...;)

Roxy Wishum said...

Some of us just have to work at it. That is the price of aging, I guess. But I still refuse to wear those super-baggy, hang below your ba-donka-donk jeans.

Lerra said...

Wow...did you just say ba-donka-donk?! You're even down with the lingo!

Roxy Wishum said...

duh!

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