Run With Mu

DNF: Did not finish, the three letters runners dread to see following their names when race results are posted. But why let three letters of the alphabet strike fear and loathing in your heart? I have been listed as a DNF on more than one occasion. Some days are just some days. In spite of all our careful training and calibration the universe sometimes chooses to whirl in a different direction, and plans and paces snap and twang. Start lines and finish lines are arbitrary markers, taken down after the race is over and leaving the landscape in the same state of impermanence it was in before — changing, unfinished. And we go home and begin training for another race. Do we ever really finish? And when, exactly, did we start? My entire life is a DNF, no starts, no finishes, always just this, and there is no problem with that at all. The only difficulty with our permanent DNF is struggling to realize that instead of dreading it, we can rejoice in it.

Cool, then warm, then cool again. That intense green of new leaves crowding the tree branches. The days change, the mornings change, the hours change. Late spring in Texas, and a kaleidoscope of weather. If you don’t like it, the old saying goes among the North Texas natives, wait a few minutes. Of course, the considerably warmer, wetter air of summer will eventually win, although for now the battle rages as if the outcome were on a knife edge and the world’s fate hung in the balance. But we all know how the story ends, and how it begins all over again.

Underneath the rapidly shifting skies, I continue to run. And sit. The running is going well, as my training enters its final “pre-buildup” before the hard work of the summer begins. Running during the summer in Texas is a penance for sins committed in your infancy, sins you have yet to even recognize as sinful. In Texas, running in the summer is a vast confessional. I am not worthy.

And, yet, I try to be. My Tuesday tempo run is up to 45 minutes with an additional 5 minutes of warm up and cool down; I will only increase the intensity from here on. Same for my Thursday quarter-mile 6% incline repeats on the treadmill, which are up to my maximum of eight and will likewise only increase in intensity. My Wednesday run is firmly set at an hour and a half and will go for no longer. Friday is still rest, complete and utter blessed nothing for a day. Saturday is now firmly 14 miles and never less, and will increase beginning in June. Sunday is firmly 8 miles, but will likewise increase when June rolls around. Monday used to be another complete rest day, but now I’m running very relaxed for 45-50 minutes. I’m feeling the need for something more this year, even if it’s largely symbolic.

So, much of the basic training outline is already in place. The 4-6 hour weekend runs will be a slow build throughout the summer, but for now those are happily far in front of me, although the clock, like the weather, marches relentlessly onward. I have enjoyed the patter of rain during many of my early morning sits, and the coolness of the little corner of the world where I meditate each day. I look forward to a zazenkai in July, a reunion with one of my teachers who moved to a nearby town for the sake of her career. Her life has changed — as has mine with our oldest daughter moving away, as the weather changes, as the weekend runs become longer, as my body grows more fatigued, my muscles more sore. It’s starting to feel like training again. And, at the same time, it has always felt like training.

Hints of the summer to come, the final faint traces of the winter that was. The clock ticks, the thunderstorms chase each other like a dog chasing its tail, and I run, and sit, and try to take it as it comes. “All worldly change with shape and form is swallowed up by impermanence,” the great Chinese Zen master Hengchuan told his probably befuddled monks. “Impermanence too is swallowed up by impermanence. If you can awaken to the impermanence of impermanence, this is the true self of all of you.” I’m not sure I’m there yet, but on the cushion and the roads and trails, I’m trying.