A Playful Reminder

I have been on the fence about continuing to run races for years. As a pure expression of youthful play, running has been my mainstay for over 53 years without much interruption. It is not a sport, nor an avocation, but has become a lifestyle – a defining activity that best characterizes who I am. I hope always to be able to lace up my shoes and head out the door for a jaunt through the woods, but I find myself caring less and less about the result of time or the social rewards of some measured event. Nonetheless, it is difficult to break a lifelong pattern of toeing the line and striving to compete... or at least to do my best without excuse.

So I have continued to sign up for racing events and travel to new venues to challenge myself and enjoy the camaraderie of others like me. My heart says “do it”; my instincts tell me it is time to move on. Scripture runs through my head:

When I was a child, I spoke like a child,

I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child.

When I became a man, I gave up childish ways.

1 Corinthians 13:11

But I wish always to be as a child – resilient and open and playful. So I dig deeper and query my higher self as to what it is that I need now give up.

Traveling to coal country in West Virginia, I once again pinned a race number on my shorts to take on a challenge that has had me curious for some time – to see how far I could run uninterrupted for two days. When I received my race bib at check-in I was stopped in my tracks - #222.

Angel numbers appear in my life over and over again. They are not serendipitous; I deem them to be pointed messages from the spiritual world to guide me or reinforce the choices I am making. The number 222 is a message of balance and harmony. Either the angels were encouraging me to pursue this challenge, or they were concurring with my instincts to leave behind this pursuit in order to achieve a higher balance.

While I am curious about the limits of physical expression as an old guy, am I getting stuck in old patterns of thinking and behavior and holding myself back from the progression of my soul's path by continuing to pursue “childish” ambitions? I read the message of my bib number 222 as a spiritual smack upside the head. It was a clear reminder that I needed to rebalance.

A sinus headache (by my own choice: we create our own reality: always) forced me to abandon the event early on, so I was not able to pursue an answer to my wonderment about running for two days straight. Immediately I felt more relief than any sense of failure or abandonment or unfulfillment. My instincts celebrate my decision to move beyond “childish” ways.

Will I quit running? Absolutely not. I look forward with passion to a continued lifetime of running. Will I abandon racing cold turkey and abstain from further competitive challenges from now on? Absolutely not. But I will trim those that supersede my concept of play. If an event is playful, I shall continue to toe the line and abandon myself to reckless joy. If the event entails egregious suffering to accomplish a finish, this I shall leave behind.

While suffering is necessary for all growth, I have already learned the lessons that suffering during races has to teach. I leave that experience for those who still need to go out on that limb to retrieve the lessons it teaches. There are other lessons I need to pursue; my instincts tell me they are no longer to be found from racing long and hard.