Run With Mu

When the legendary Badwater 135 ultramarathon starts deep in the salt flats of Death Valley this July, one of the 90 athletes toeing the start line will be U.S. Marine Corps Captain Mosi Smith. As part of his application to enter Badwater, Captain Smith wrote an essay which included the following memory of running in the Javelina Hundred ultramarathon in Arizona:

“On that cool evening in November running the JJ100, I came face to face with a previously unexplored depth of my soul. I felt stripped away and as open as the sky above the Sonoran Desert.”

I’m no Mosi Smith, but I can certainly relate to this experience with ultramarathoning: when there is nothing left but pain and fatigue, when you literally become pain and fatigue, you are indeed stripped bare — as naked and open as you can feel on the seventh day of a week-long sesshin. It’s as these times, when we’re at our most vulnerable and egoless, that the greatest spiritual growth can occur.

And this, for me, is a reminder of why ultramarathoning can be a vital and instructive part of Zen practice. Not that one has to run ultramarathons to practice Zen. But if one can realize a significant spiritual link in their running practice, then running simply becomes Zen. And vice versa, of course. Zen is all about the vice versa.

Training in the heat has resumed. I’m still doing some treadmill running mostly for shorter/more intense workouts. Wednesday evening, Saturday and Sunday are reserved for longer outdoor runs and, as sad as this is, I’ve actually already gotten acclimated to running in 85+ temperatures for up to nearly 3 hours. I suppose we’re all going to have to learn to get more acclimated, as the global climate continues its slow, disturbing changes.

Still early training days, and not much to say about them for now. I’ve also recently become a first-time grandfather to a beautiful baby girl, who I’ll get to hold in less than three weeks. Seeing her pictures and knowing I’m her “Pop” is, to paraphrase newlywed Abraham Lincoln writing about his marriage, a matter of profound wonder. It’s also a reminder that time is oozing on, and that every step I take in ultra training is a step closer to the day I won’t be able to do it any more. Not yet. But, of course, it will come.

I actually made two weekend sesshins in a row, which was invaluable time spent sitting and staring at a wall. It’s so wonderful how every sesshin encompasses the same basic schedule and activity, yet every one has its own personality. These were intimate sits where every breath in the room could often be heard. I was very glad to get some of my attention back, and realize how many different kinds of “hot” there really are … and how the ball of noisiness I perceive I’m hearing, when I allow it to unravel like a big ball of tangled yarn, is actually a continual symphony, resonating with infinite variety.

Thanks in part to those sesshins, this morning during my long run I was able to slip into the rhythm of my steps and breathing, which together played for me: “Huh Huh” (in breath) and “Huey Huey” (out breath). I found my groove and ran along to the sounds of Huh, huh, Huey Huey, Huey, Huey, huh, huh, around the lake spillway, up the east shore and all the way home. My own runner’s mantra!