Every morning in Africa

There is a folk tale among runners that goes something like this.  

Every morning in Africa, a lion awakes.  It knows it must outrun the slowest gazelle or it will starve.  

Every morning in Africa, a gazelle awakes.  It knows it must outrun the fastest lion, or it will die.  

It doesn't matter whether you are the lion or the gazelle, but when the sun comes up, you had better be up and running.  

It is a lovely story, and very inspiring. Some days, you feel like a lion: strong, in control, awe-inspiring, driven. Some days you feel like the gazelle:  sleek, fast, beautiful.   But it ignores the third possibility, which I considered yesterday.   Some days, you are neither the fast lion or the speedy gazelle.  Some days, you are the limping gazelle, the second slowest in the pack, barely moving fast enough to stay alive. Or maybe the overweight gazelle just trying to keep up.  Or maybe the second fastest lion, who only gets leftovers. You don't feel good, you don't look good, and you definitely don't want to be running around the savannah. There is nothing graceful or powerful about your movements.  On these days, you are just lucky to be moving, because it means you are still alive.

 If we are honest, we all have days like this. We feel tired, sore, overwhelmed, out of shape, stressed out, inadequate, intimidated, weak, or just plain wimpy. Fortunately, not every day is like this.  And if you have the strength to get out the door and go for a run even on the worst of days, it means you are already winning that one battle and are probably stronger than you think. 

So be grateful, second slowest gazelle, that you are running at all.  You may not win any races, but you will get better and you will stay a step ahead of the lion.  Hang in there.  Happy running. 

Research

This year I am teaching high school English, along with coaching the distance runners on the track team. I think my students must believe I just enjoy pain.  We just got done writing research papers in one class, and I admit to finding the whole process kind of exciting. When my students seem overwhelmed at the outset,  I assure them that if they put in the time and work step by step, they will be able to complete the assignment and produce quality work.   

To complete any research project, you start with a question, look for as much information as you can find about the subject, then spend time reading, writing, and revising, followed by more reading, writing, and revising. Finally you put it all together to produce a final product that answers the original question.  At times, the process seems to go on forever.  As one of my college professors said, "A paper is never really finished, it is just due."  In the end, sometimes the answer is predictable; sometimes it is not. But one still ends with the satisfaction of discovering something new and producing something you didn't know you could before.

As I was running today, I figured that running and research papers aren't altogether different, and maybe that is why I enjoy both. With a little apprehension, you start with the question: can I run this distance in this time? And then you do the research of training.  It is hard and frustrating at times, but you learn a lot along the way. Like the revising process of writing, in distance running you run, recover, tweak your training, then run, recover, and adjust again. Finally, the final product of a race comes due.  It answers the question you started with, and you discover that all the hard work was worth it as you proved you could do unexpected things.  The satisfaction of your finished product is immense, and you learned something about yourself in the process.  You understand what you are capable of and what your limits are better than you did before. 

 But then you realize that the research is never really done; it's just a work in progress.  You have new questions to answer.  So, as daunting as it may seem at the outset, you begin the learning cycle again for the next race.   In the end, it is always worth it. Trust me.  

Happy research.