Memorial Quinn Day

As a joke, my teammates have started a "Memorial Quinn Day" party back at the alma mater which is another college excuse to party, with the side benefit of having my face plastered everywhere.  Hurray.

But sorry guys, because with my first update in months, I'm hijacking the day to waste an hour at work by compiling my thoughts over this transition in my running life/career.

After I graduated, I was pretty down on running. My senior year was the first year I failed to PR, in either XC or Track, in my 9-year tenure. I think I went into the woe ad nauseam in previous posts so I won't rehash it here.

I slowly got back into some semi regular miles in Denver before I moved out to Ann Arbor for a new gig, but nothing that could constitute as actual 'training' in the way we define it. Sure I can still rip a quick workout here or there, but I can't do it consistently, and as anyone who has done hard training knows, individual efforts are typically worthwhile, but without consistency they can quickly become worthless.

A few weeks before leaving Denver, it was the middle of January winter and I went out for what would become my coldest run I'd ever done. A 5 degree afternoon took a quick hit very early in my run, and dropped quickly to -5 before I was finished. My run that followed a nearly-iced-over river through downtown that was typically alive with joggers, bikers, families out for walks, and college kids doing a myriad of nameless activities was empty. Not 'pretty empty,' but empty.

4 miles later I was still cold as shit, and nearing my turnaround point. Still no one. Still cold as shit, and getting colder. The air burns your lungs, and I was questioning, as I had for the previous 6 months, why I was out there. One or two minutes before I hit my turnaround, a flock of nearly a thousand geese flew down to rest on the river and get a drink before continuing on their trip. Obviously a migration stop, I came to my turnaround point and just stood there, in the blistering cold, watching hundreds upon hundreds of unfamiliar birds crash into the ice, into each other, some landing in water, some sliding across the frozen wakes like gigantic, stupid marbles with horns for voices.

It was simultaneously hilarious, beautiful, and sad. There was no one else around for miles, as I had taken a path leading directly away from the city toward the train shipping district.

I don't know exactly what about this scene had such a deep impact on me, and thinking back I can't articulate it to a satisfying degree. Maybe it was the thought that without running and exploring 9 or 10 miles every day opens you up to these sorts of opportunities, maybe it was the feeling that I alone was out there in the January freeze, putting in semi-solid miles for no particular reason, training for nothing in particular. The feeling that my passive drive was stronger than innumerable others active ones in the area, regardless of the fact that there's no way to verify whether or not that was true, especially in one stupid run for one stupid hour of the frozen day. But I felt it anyway. Maybe it was just as simple as appreciating nature. I don't know.

But it had a big impact on me, so that for the days, weeks, and months that followed I started to train more regularly.

On this week, when Memorial Quinn Day started popping up on my facebook newsfeed like a drunk Celtics fan with access to LeBron James' twitter (looking at you, Rafer), I sit here thinking about the memorial of my running, and whether or not I want to hang up the spikes totally, because I clearly don't.

I have been focused on speed skating like I have talked about earlier, but I'm still a complete novice after a few lessons here and there. It will take time, and I am not giving up that easily. But while I grapple with this new sport, I think I can continue to train for running pretty intensely without sacrificing much. The races are short and fast, and if I look to combine 800-1500m training with some catered lifting, perhaps I can get to new heights that I previously hadn't tried before. Who knows.

It may be Memorial Quinn Day, but while I am no longer an actively-competing CMS Stag, my career isn't at a point where I can let it go, and in that recognition comes the same feeling I had on that frozen day in Denver, turning around to run home, alone.