Shabbat

My marathon training schedule lays out specifically how long I need to run each day and at what heart rate.  There is really not much flexibility built into the program.  So, I have to make decisions now that will be a commitment of my time weeks and months into the future.

I am a CPA that specializes in taxes.  That means my work schedule gets very busy from about the beginning of February until the middle of April.  Tax season itself may be described as a marathon.  You can’t just blow all of your reserves any time you want to get things done.  Rather, you have to pace yourself for the long haul all along the way.  In doing so, things might take a little longer to accomplish in mid-February than they would at the beginning of April.  I guess it’s like the running concept of negative splits.  You should always be faster in the second half of a long race than in the first (or so I understand).

Throughout my adult life, I have been rather strict in my observance of Shabbat.  Demanding a weekly day of rest for myself has, I believe, allowed me to be on net more productive in every aspect of my life.  My family life is richer, my working life more efficient, my spiritual life deeper for observing the Sabbath.  I’ve had to fine tune my relationship to Shabbat over time, and the observance in our home takes on a distinctly Rau-family flavor.  The essence of our Shabbat observance is, I believe, true to scripture: we do not work, nor do we have work done on our behalf, nor do we engage in commerce on the Sabbath.  We boil no water & do not kindle fires.  We avoid turning on or off lights.  We try to set aside time to study scripture and otherwise share in religious communion.

I’ve never been in the habit of exercising on Shabbat -- I’ve routinely avoided it other than the natural exercise that comes with playing with my children -- but I’ve never really had to explore “rules” about what is within the scope of allowable exercise.  So, it is with some consternation that I have made the decision that my weekly long run will fall on Saturday.

The long runs on my program are as long as three hours a couple of weeks prior to the marathon.  Generally they’re closer to two hours.  So, the question becomes: what is the best day for my long runs? 

I’ve been able to be stubbornly observant of not working on Shabbat by being willing to work Sundays -- every Sunday throughout busy season.  Long weekday hours & a moderate work day on Sunday allow me to be observant of a Sabbath day of rest as well as uncompromising in Sunday church attendance.  And the question, as always, must hearken back to how I can best serve my family while attempting to attain this new goal.

Dare I attempt to figure a long run into my weekday work schedule?  I think not.  This last year, I began my work days on Monday through Friday at 6:00 AM.  This allowed me to take a long lunch, during which I did my exercise.  But how long would lunch have to be for me to expect a two-hour run, or how early in the morning would I have to awaken to run two (and even three) hours before getting to work?  No, this would surely be setting myself up for failure.  The other obvious choice would be Sunday.  But how much burden do I want to put on Julie to get the kids ready for church by herself in the morning?  And again, exactly how early would I have to get up to be able to do this?  No -- I’ve decided that Saturdays will involve running for my period of training. 

But honestly, I don’t necessarily think that running precludes rest, or vice versa.  The rest of Shabbat is not simply lazing around the house & taking naps (although most Shabbats do, indeed, have both of these features).  No, the real rest afforded by Shabbat is on a different level.  It’s about setting the day aside, free from the cares of the mundane world.  For me, at least at this point, running is certainly not mundane. 

So, we’ll see how this plays out.  As I say, I’m a bit apprehensive about this decision.  It was not made lightly.  Though I am optimistic.  I believe that I’ve made the right decision.

Shabbat shalom!

Recent Beach Runs

By the summer of 2011, I had gained some discipline in running.  By this point, running has become an important & joyful part of my day.  I tend to run every morning (except the occasional morning such as today, when I am weary from watching my beloved Red Sox spectacularly end their season late last night).  So I have more at stake now than I did some years ago.  In years gone by, a running injury would have only been a disappointment for that week.  But now, it would rob me of something quite important to me.

Accordingly, gone are the days of ascetic running.  It used to be that I would run as long & hard as I could going one direction on the beach, forcing me to go essentially twice as far as my body wanted to go.  But now, I have a little bit of knowledge; and knowledge leads to caution.  Injury is the bane of runners, since there’s really no getting around the extent to which you rely on your body for such activity.  Experts in books and blogs continually warn about the danger of injury.

My 2011 beach trips reflected a healthier attitude toward running.  However, as my respect for the endeavor has waxed, it had been at the expense of the asceticism that used to drive the activity.  Even as I used my two beach trips this year to run harder than I would as part of my routine, my efforts were tempered by the repeated warnings about injury that I’ve come across.

My running has become less prayerful and more process-driven over time.  I am no longer blessed with the mystical union of which running used to avail me.  My “marching orders” are not so predictably forthcoming anymore.  The ecstasy of my special week of running at the beach has diminished.

However, I now experience a joy which is renewed every time I run. 

It seems that maturity in running may indeed have parallels to religious growth.  The mountaintop bliss that a teenager experiences at summer church camp must give way to something that sustains and is sustainable throughout the year.  The glorious epiphanies that mark the beginning of a religious life need to give rise to commitment and dedication if their substance is genuine.

One cannot be a genuine Christian for only a week a year.  Nor indeed can one be a genuine runner.

Running with G-d

Things have changed considerably since my early runs on the beach.

I’ve always had an ascetic drive.  When I was younger, I was torn at times between the expected path for me -- college, job, family -- and the possibility of living the austere life as a monk.  I have no regrets for the path I’ve chosen.  Especially as I dwell with my loving wife and children who give me such joy, I’m confident in the choices I’ve made.  Nonetheless, I have an underlying current which drives me.  It is mysticism in the true sense of the word -- a drive for true & present union with G-d.

My first beach runs were a combination of prayer & mortification of the flesh.  They were conscious efforts to push the limits of my body to a place far beyond physical comfort.  My mantra was “Press on like Paul!” in reference to the third chapter of Philippians.  It was a chance to remove myself from my life & approach G-d directly.  It was phenomenally rewarding.  Such clarity of mission was granted to me on those retreats that they became an important part of my spiritual walk.  Each year I would go to the beach to petition the L-rd for my marching orders for the next year.  And my petitions were granted.

By my 2010 beach trip, things had changed somewhat.  Soon after the birth of my son Josiah, my first child, I acquired a treadmill.  My thought was that, if I could get into the habit of exercising during the lunch hour, I could maintain a decent workout schedule while not short-changing my family of time I could otherwise be spending with them.  The treadmill is a pretty nice one; it has large rollers and is very sturdy.  In my early experiments with the several built-in programs, I ended up doing speed intervals that had me running much faster than I had ever previously run on a treadmill.  It felt good.  I kept it up and made it a part of my daily routine.

So, by the time I got to Destin in September 2010, I already fancied myself a “runner.”  As it turns out, Destin is a particularly awful place to run.  First of all, being on the Gulf of Mexico, the tidal effect is nowhere near what it is on the ocean, so the beaches are really short.  It goes from water to a very narrow strip of packed sand to the softest powder imaginable in a matter of yards.  To make matters worse, September 2010 was a few short months after the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon.  The main effect of this disaster on my life was to substantially diminish my investment portfolio which was heavy on Transocean stock and options.  The secondary effect, apparently, was to provide a glut of food for algae.  The short zone of packed sand was absolutely covered in putrid algae.  A beach run was next to impossible.  I started out running in the powder and ran a little in the water.  So I started my run with wet & sandy shoes.  I took to the roads to get down to business.

To make a long story short, I rather overextended myself in my efforts.  I ended up running down an eight-mile dead end.  Actually, as the crow flies, the dead end was probably only half a mile from the house where I started -- but it was a marshy, impassible distance, leaving me no choice but to backtrack the entire eight miles.  By the end I had my shoes off, walking through the stinking algae to relieve my feet which had become ulcerated from my wet, sandy shoes.  It was a miserable run.  Worse, I lost my focus.  My prayers were shallow; my ego too vast; my petitions, unanswered.

Why do it?

Because I can.

I had never really given serious consideration to running a marathon until recently.  I have been exercising for probably ten years at this point, but you'd never be able to tell by looking at me.  My body is not weak, but my muscles are substantially obscured by a "lipid outer layer."  Working out was initially a tool that I used to help me quit smoking.  It subsequently became the means by which I have allowed myself essentially no dietary restriction while remaining somewhere shy of obese.

For years all of my exercise was done indoors; treadmills & cardio machines have been a staple in my life.  When I was travelling, I would seek out the hotel gym to keep up with whatever exercise program with which I was currently engaged.  Sometimes, however, I would use those opportunities to try something new.  Five years ago, I was on a beach vacation & had no access to a gym.  That was the first time in my adult life that I ran.

On that beach trip, I discovered something that would become increasingly more important to me.  A seed was planted that would grow into, perhaps, an obsession.  I've decided to give legs  to that obsession.  A marathon, it seems, is the perfect outgrowth of the love of running.

The time has come.