Well along in these badland years I began noticing around me men and women running alongside the roads and in the parks, people my age, my peers—lawyers, doctors, businesspeople, teachers. I hadn’t run for seventeen years. I assumed that after graduation from my university, my running days were over. I had always loved running and running races—the middle distances and mile were my events. I loved the easy rhythms, the relaxed sense of being physically in touch with the earth under my feet, the texture of the weather, my body working almost effortlessly in long cross-country workouts.
A running world had opened up when I wasn’t looking. Emboldened by what I saw around me, I began to run again. I subscribed to the magazine, Runner’s World. Jan and I each bought a pair of running shoes (Adidas) and were immediately impressed by huge strides accomplished in the technology of running shoes. After a year or so, Jan decided that running was not her thing and dropped out. She was later replaced by our son, Leif, who was winning cross-country races for his school.
It wasn’t long before running had established itself as a ritual. Every day in the late afternoon I would run five miles—it took about forty minutes. But there was far more to it than aerobic breathing and oxygenated muscles, more than the running as such. There is a meditative dimension to long-distance running: the uninterrupted quiet, the metronomic repetitiveness, the sensual immersion in the fragrance of trees and flowering bushes and rain, the springiness of the soil on park trails, the Zenlike emptying of the mind that felt like a freedom to be simply present, not having to do or say anything. Was I also running out of the badlands? It felt like it. Things were coming together. It felt like I was becoming reacquainted with my body. Another detail in the arrival?
From my schooldays, the Scottish runner Eric Liddell had been an idol of mine. He was a natural companion, a person who integrated running races with a Christian identity. I loved his statement “I believe God made me for a purpose, but he also made me fast. And when I run, I feel his pleasure.” As running was again a part of my life, I was feeling that pleasure in a fresh way. I also admired his refusal, out of reverence for God, to ever race on Sunday.
After a couple years Leif and I every month or so would compete in a 10K race somewhere in Maryland, accompanied by our cheerleader wife and mother. The most memorable of those races took place about an hour away north, in Amish country near Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Leif and I were pretty evenly matched, but I always won. A couple months before the Lancaster race, Leif’s friends told me that he was training extra hard and planned to beat me in Lancaster. And so I, without saying anything, began to put in extra miles, mixed with “speed play,” to make sure that didn’t happen. The day came, and the three of us drove to the site of the race. The course began in the university sports complex with a lap around the track. Then it was mapped through the Amish farms through the countryside. There were ten hills. We started out running side by side. Leif was a stronger runner than I, and so going up the hills he pulled out ahead. But I was a better downhill runner and passed him. We exchanged leads ten times on those ten hills. As we approached the end of the race at the stadium, I knew I would have to increase my lead if I was going to win. And so I did. I thought that the race ended when we entered the stadium. I had timed my final sprint for that anticipated finish. But the end of the race included a final lap around the track. I had a quarter of a mile left. I gave it my all, but there wasn’t much “all” left. On the last stretch I heard Leif coming—I knew it had to be him. Down the last stretch he passed and beat me by twenty yards. All the time he was passing me, I could hear Jan in the stands, yelling, “Leif, you can’t do that to your father!” But he did. And he did it fair and square.
It was probably the most satisfying loss of my life. And he was completely modest in victory. He didn’t crow. But later I couldn’t help but notice a classic Oedipal quality to the event.
After several years of this, I got more ambitious—I started to run marathons. A marathon for a distance runner is the ultimate race: 26.2 miles. Far more than simple endurance is required; it is an art form—pacing, diet, mental readiness—a dozen things can go wrong in the three hours or so of running. Every year I would train for and run a marathon. And then I decided I would run the Boston Marathon, in my mind, and many others’, the granddaddy of all marathons. But there was one problem. Not just anybody can run the Boston. You first have to qualify by achieving your qualifying time in another recognized marathon. Qualifying times are adjusted to your age group. When I turned fifty, my qualifying time was raised to three hours and twenty minutes. I thought I had a chance at that and so started getting ready—it takes at least six months.
As I was looking for a marathon that was geographically accessible and fit into the time frame needed, the only one I could locate was the Philadelphia Marathon in November (the Boston is always in April). But there was a huge problem—I wouldn’t be able to do it. It was held on Sunday. Eric Liddell would not have run it on Sunday. I couldn’t run it on Sunday.
At the next meeting of my ruling elders I told them of my disappointment. “Sunday? Why can’t you run on Sunday?”
“Because Eric Liddell, a world-class runner and a Christian, would never run on Sunday.” I told them of my youthful and now lifelong admiration of Liddell and of my respect for his reverence of the Lord’s Day. There was no way that I could run a marathon on Sunday.
“Haven’t you watched the movie Chariots of Fire—all about Eric Liddell?” They had, but they had missed the part about Sundays.
A half-hour discussion heated up. They wanted me to run the Philadelphia Marathon. “Eric Liddell was a Scots Presbyterian—they are strict about that kind of thing; we’re American Presbyterians—we would be honored if you would represent us. You have our absolution, and our blessing.”
And they reminded me that they had the authority to do this. They were, remember, my ruling elders. I accepted their ruling and went into training.
We booked a hotel in Philadelphia and drove up on Saturday for the Sunday race. Saturday evening all the runners assembled in the hotel for registration and a supper of pasta. Pasta, and lots of it, is the supper of choice before a marathon. Early Sunday morning, having long since deleted Eric Liddell from my pastoral imagination, I joined the runners to be bussed to a small village where the race would begin, twenty-six miles out in the country north of the city. Jan kept the Sabbath by going to worship at a nearby church.
The autumn day was bright with sunshine, but cool, ideal running weather. Several hundred of us gathered at the starting line. About five miles into the race we entered a small village. Loudspeakers were ranged along the curb. Suddenly the air was full of the theme song from Chariots of Fire. And Eric Liddell. I had forgotten all about him. And now here he was. The first thing I thought of was that I was betraying my friend—my faithful companion across the years in running races. But guilt, as it turned out, proved to be the perfect energy supplement. As I crossed the finish line, the electronic, digital clock on the steps of Independence Hall, confirmed by Jan and her greeting, gave me the verdict: I had qualified for Boston.
Five months later I ran the Boston Marathon. But the Boston is always on Monday. I ran that one guilt free.