When I think of this past month’s ‘MatchStick 5k/10k Challenge’, I think of ‘finishing’
That’s right. If you’ve ever participated in a race such as the one that adorned our streets back in June, you know that the goal is not necessarily to win. Rather, it’s to finish what you started.
I stood in front of the radio station and watched a slender, somewhat elderly gentleman in a damp gray tank-top run up the small incline of pavement on College Street, just before the Wadsworth Music building. That small incline doesn’t get a second thought when one climbs it in a car. But it’s a different story when you’re running. And the man in the gray tank-top was struggling already.
He stopped. And then he started again. By the time he had crossed over Main Street, he had stopped. This rhythm continued until he was out of my sight-line. But he had my attention, as well as my appreciation.
I’m not much of a runner, but I do it occasionally. (I’m also not extremely organized. Had I been, I would have signed up for the race in time!) But I spent that evening watching the runners and calling back in to the station while Tim Davisson played music, reporting (if that’s what you call it) on the events unfolding, and being intermittently pelted by rain-drops.
I think a 5k/10k, like the Matchstick, is really a teaching moment. It demonstrates that we’re capable of more. It’s a revelation about ourselves, that we have more strength and endurance than we thought we did. And I think we need to remind ourselves of that from time to time.
Later, as I watched some of the final runners make their way down West Street on to College, I again spotted the man in the gray tank-top. It was saturated with perspiration. As he and the others headed south on West Street, the volunteers dressed in orange shirts shouted encouraging words to everyone who passed. As the man in the gray tank-top slowly stuttered by us, gasping for oxygen and alternating between running and walking, I could feel my lips forming the same words as the orange-clad volunteers. Words like “C’mon, man, you can do it” and “keep striding” and “don’t give up”.
And he didn’t give up. He kept pounding the pavement, one foot in front of the other. I stared at him long after he had slowly galloped off in to the distance, towards Art Wright Stadium, and it was clear to me that he was going to make it, that he was going to finish. And sometimes that’s all we want to do, to assure ourselves that we can. With anything. That we can start what we finish.
