I Do Not Run Like the Taliban

Since it was raining I ran at the gym and discovered that a great many people in our city appear to have made fitness-related New Year's resolutions, as every single stinkin' treadmill machine was occupied with people talking loudly (indoor voice, people!) about how much they'd overeaten during the holidays, God bless 'em.

So a couple of folks in the small group of runners with whom I'm running the LA Marathon started laughingly calling me "coach";  I tend to think of myself more as their cheerleader, only without the pleated skirt and ponytail (wait, does that make me like W?  Gadzooks!), but since we may be running a modestly difficult trail near my house soon and therefore any aches and pains would be indirectly my fault, I've been trying to come up with a pre-run pep-talk, and it goes a little something like this:

If you were a skateboarder during the 80's you may remember using the term "poseur" as one of derision.  Nowadays the kids are calling 'em "tryhards", as in "they're trying too hard", but the idea's basically the same.  Usually, poseurs were kids who came from moneyed families so they had all of the skateboarder's gear, the Vision Streetwear hooded sweatshirt, the Bones Brigade t-shirt, the Air Jordan Nike high-tops, the carefully folded issue of "Transworld Skateboarding" magazine tucked into the back pocket of their Quicksilver shorts.

The problem was that even though they dressed the part, they couldn't play it - they'd dress like skaters but couldn't really skate.  Their expensive equipment didn't bear the marks of hard use, and what rankled was their implicit attitude that looking like skaters made them skaters, when in fact it's vice-versa, isn't it?

I mean, that's part of the problem with the Taliban - well, besides all of the not-allowing-girls-to-be-educated, public executions, etc.  It's not solely that the Taliban's interpretation of Islam is incorrect, nor is it that they're in Waziristan sporting Powell Peralta t-shirts under their robes.  Rather, the problem I'd like to draw your attention to is that the Taliban are religious poseurs:  they seem to think that acting holy is what makes you holy, just like skating poseurs thought that acting like skaters - the attire, the swagger, etc. - made them skaters.  The Taliban, like poseurs, have it all backwards by thinking that by forcing people to abide by their laws and therefore making people act holy will make them holy, but instead, if you are in the presence of God then you will behave as though you are in the presence of God, if you have been made holy then you will act holy, not holier-than-thou.

You may have guessed where I'm going with all of this stuff (or maybe not):  we're not running to become runners, but rather, we run because we are runners.

Did I just blow your mind?  Thought so.  But think of it!  If all human beings, no matter one's shape, tall and gangly or short and squat, round or thin, etc. etc, were meant to be runners, doesn't that change the equation, or flip the script, as the kids are saying nowadays?  If people were made to be runners, then maybe it isn't crazy that we could run for miles and miles.  If people are born runners, then not only can we run 26.2, 50, even 100 miles, but we were meant to run that much.

What strikes me is the incredulity that people respond with when I present that idea to them, that they couldn't possibly run like that, which I think is such a shame because that means that these folks presuppose their limitations.  It seems to me that they've already decided on what's impossible, rather than having the curiosity to explore what is possible.

And that's something I find terribly exciting:  like the potential that exists in the thought that if I have been made holy I can do holy things, if I am a runner, what kind of unholy distances am I capable of?

I run like a Presbyterian!

New Year's Run with Resolutioners
15 min. on the Elliptical
4.03 mi.  35 min.  8:41 pace.