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.