Running has given me a great deal and the longer I have
participated in it the more complex and varied my cultural identity as a runner
has become. I started out as a very
mainstream, hyper gear-conscious triathlete who fully embraced every advantage
of modern technology and always raced close to home with the sole goal of going
fast, placing well and winning awards. But
over time I have drifted further and further to the idea of running as a kind
of quest for understanding and connecting, understanding myself for sure but
also understanding and connecting with people at a more fundamental level.
There are no pretenses in running and no masks for those who
run long distances to hide behind.
I
have run the gritty working class streets of Cincinnati, the upscale
waterfronts of Chicago and San Francisco, the genteel horse country of
Kentucky, the remote hollows of Alabama, the beautifully desolate hill country
and canyon lands of Texas, the high mountains of New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming
and Utah, the lonely deserts of Arizona and Nevada, the rugged terrain of
California’s Sierra Nevadas, the damp forests of Oregon and Washington and so
much more.
I have even run the hallowed
grounds of the Boston Marathon and they have all revealed to me some aspect of
myself and provided me with some deeper connection to my fellow human.
When I was interviewed about having done the Grand Slam of
Ultrarunning I said “Doing the Slam was about reaching back into history and
joining with those runners who came before me and with them, attempt to do
something so audacious.”
Doing Canyon de
Chelly was very much the same kind of reaching back, the same kind of seeking
kinship with the past while tying that past to the present. However, Canyon de
Chelly involved reaching WAAYYY back in history, back to a time lost in the
mists of time when running wasn’t just a sport but human kind’s fastest mode of
transportation and something that was not only practical but also spiritual.
Running as a way of connecting to the distant past and
running as a form of spiritual quest is not something that’s entirely new to
me.
Back when I was an undergraduate in
college, actually before I became a runner, I did an independent study with a
locally well-known poet, V.B. Price.
I
called the independent study “In through the Outdoors.”
In some ways, apart from the title, it mirrored
the concept of the famous Led Zeppelin Album, “In through the Out Door” in that
I was trying to regain something lost.
Specifically, I had just completed six fairly disappointing years as a
low ranking enlisted man in the Marine Corps and my goal was to try and
reconnect with who I had been and who I wanted to be as opposed to who I felt I
had become and who others demanded I be.
To that end I
Sometimes
the outings were mellow and contemplative and sometimes they were relentlessly
aggressive and exhausting.
However, each
of the outings resulted in new insights that were chronicled in a series of
poems I wrote and discussed with V.B.
spent a few hours a week hiking and jogging in the Sandia
mountains east of Albuquerque.
When I did become a runner my natural curiosity lead me to
reading about the ancient practice of persistence hunting whereby a group of
tribesmen strategically run down prey until it is too exhausted to escape them
any longer.
While humans are naturally blessed
with the ability to run phenomenally long distances at moderate paces, our four
legged brothers and sisters have speed but only over short distances.
While we were able to jog along and repeatedly
startle the animal into bolting for a few hundred yards, the animal could only
bolt so many times before it was done.
As long as we could keep sight of the same animal it would eventually
become too exhausted to run away and we would move in for the kill.
Theoretically, at least in the pursuit of large animals, a
group of hunters would divvy up with the smaller, speedier tribesmen actually
running the animal to exhaustion and the larger, slower tribesmen following
behind wielding clubs or stone axes to deliver the killing blow. I have often been out on a run and imagined myself
as one of those large, slow, stone ax wielding hunters.
Indeed, there have been many trail races where I found
myself in a small line of men running down a single track trail though the
canyons, mountains, deserts or forests and I suddenly find that in my mind’s
eye I can see and experience my own distant past as a persistence hunter.
I am transformed from an urban dweller with
an office job and a mortgage into a man with nothing more than his few clothes,
his fellows, the beauty of nature and the running.
In these moments everything is right with the
world, everything is as it should be and I am at peace.
I think running trails allows us to move
through the world at a human pace rather than a technology driven pace,
it allows us to move through a natural environment
rather than a built environment and that, I believe, is what results in the
sense of peace and calm that arises from trail running.
For me the equanimity
won on the trails
translates directly into resilience back in the modern world.
While the experience of traveling back in time as an ancient
runner in a natural environment brings me great peace it does not have any
particular story that is connected to me in any real way, it’s only a
fantasy. However, William Yazzie, race
director Shaun Martin’s father-in-law and spiritual mentor does have a story
that ties together running through time, creating continuity between my most
ancient of ancestors and my own life today.
During the race briefing the night before we began our
journey into Canyon de Chelly he recounted part of the Navajo creation myth for
us runners.
What Mr. Yazzie had to say not
only held cultural significance for him as a Navajo, it also held significance
for us as runners and for me personally.
Mr. Yazzie told us, “At the beginning of time back in the old days
monsters plagued the Navajo people.
These monsters roamed the earth causing trouble and misery for the
people.
Changing Woman (a.k.a. mother
earth) gave birth to twins. These twins wanted to rid the world of the monsters
and by doing so make the people safe.
Through
running long distances with the holy people, the twins became powerful war gods
who defeated the monsters.
Today there
are still evil monsters that are plaguing the people, monsters like alcoholism,
drugs, and diabetes.
You runners are
like the twins training and running long distances, defeating today’s evil
monsters and by doing so you inspire the people; when they watch you running
they have hope that maybe they can
also defeat the evil monsters of today."
Race morning dawned clear and cold.
An intimate community of around 85 runners
and a few volunteers gathered around a small bonfire and stood silently at the
mouth of Canyon de Chelly, all facing east, all contemplating the journey
ahead, all listening as William Yazzie welcomed the day’s new dawn in the
traditional Navajo way, with prayer.
As
Mr. Yazzie finished singing his prayers to the new day a Navajo spiritual
leader introduced himself and let us know he was going to prey for our health,
our safety and our journey in the Navajo way.
He held aloft a bundle of Eagle feathers in one hand and in the other
scooped some cedar shavings from a leather pouch around his neck and tossed
them onto the hot coals.
As the smoke
began to rise he began to chant his prayer and then instructed us to cleanse
ourselves in the smoke of the cedar.
He
then laughed, tossed some more cedar on the coals and said, “Maybe we should
make sure and do a good job of cleansing.”
Despite Shaun’s joking the night before at the race briefing
about “Rez time” he had us all lined up and ready to go right at 7:00 as
advertised.
He gave us our final
instructions and told us “When I say go be sure to yell out in the Navajo way,
yell out to introduce yourselves to the Canyon and to announce your selves to
the gods” and with that he yelled, “On your mark, get set, go!” and in unison
all us runners let out loud yips and yells and surged forward, running into the
east, into the dawn of a new day in the traditional Navajo way. The rest, as
they say, is history.
While I can’t adequately convey my experience of running
Canyon de Chelly in words, I can, in the White Suburban Guy way, tell you that
the course was mostly flat sandy roads, some sand was pretty deep but most was
not and all was blessedly compacted by recent rains, there were a total of
around 70 stream crossings, also courtesy of the recent rains, all about ankle
to mid-shin deep and maybe five to 15 feet wide, I spent the majority of my day
running alone and I finished in 6:44:23.
I made no attempt to run fast but I did embrace running as a
form of prayer and in that largely solitary experience, found my brothers and
sisters on the trail.
I also did my best
to try and document my journey through many, many
pictures that I hope will
convey some small sense of the stark grandeur of the Sacred Canyon.
That is my story about running in the Navajo tradition,
running as a prayer, and now I’ll end with a traditional Navajo prayer that has
been slightly modified for runners.
The Navajo Beauty Way
Ceremony
In beauty may I run
All day long may I run
Through the returning
seasons may I run
Beautifully I will
possess again
Beautifully birds
Beautifully joyful birds
On the trail marked with
pollen may I run
With grasshoppers about
my feet may I run
With dew about my feet
may I run
With beauty may I run
With beauty before me may
I run
With beauty behind me may
I run
With beauty above me may
I run
With beauty all around me
may I run
In old age, wandering on
a trail of beauty, lively, may I run
In old age, wandering on
a trail of beauty, living again, may I run
It is finished in beauty
It is
finished in beauty
Ahe’hee Shaun Martin!
Ahe’hee William Yazzie!
Ahe’hee Din’e!
H’ago’onee’ my friends, until
we meet again.
This weekend was supposed to be a Drill weekend with the
Army Guard but we were told there was no money and so no Drill. As soon as I found out I wouldn’t be at Drill
I asked the GeekGrl if she wanted to run and, well, her answer is pretty
obvious by this point. 
