Besides watching pro wrestling, the more serious thing that I spent my teenage years doing was running
cross-country and track. And yet as this author and book show, it was fun, in a way that you either get
or you don't. I began in 1992 and soon got a subscription to Runners' World. While it featured a number
of contributors, the one who was esteemed above all was Dr. George Sheehan. If I remember correctly,
his columns were recycled as "The Best of Sheehan" or something like that. After my freshman year of
college I retired from competitive sports, but after my sophomore year I came across this book, which
integrated my philosophical studies with how I spent my teenage years.
It was a pleasure to re-read this book after many years. I got many of the author's literary, philosophical
and social science allusions better than I did the first time. But to be honest, I didn't enjoy, and didn't
feel the book as much, because I haven't been living it recently. Hopefully I will again. The past few months
I've been battling Lyme disease and switched to lower impact activities. Fortunately, I was able to feel
the final chapters more immediately. But even the opening is of value, where Sheehan talks about being
an ectomorph, hungry, more interested in ideas than people, being cheap and low-maintenance but
high-maintenance for everybody else, in a funny and self-deprecatory way. And naps are one of the
most underrated things in civilization. There's a dark Irish sensibility to the spirituality that I think
most runners will get, as they have for the past five decades.
The author himself had a rejuvenation from a midlife slump through running. Whatever the reader's
passion or lack thereof, hopefully you can find some inspiration here.
Here are some passages that I found to be key.
p. 20 The runner does not run because he is too slight for football or hasn't the ability to put a ball through
a hoop or can't hit a curve ball. He runs because he has to. Because...he is fulfilling himself and becoming
the person he is.
Note-for women and others who don't like the "he" language, Sheehan gets to that issue in another
section.
p. 65 It is not running, but running that is play, that is necessary. Exercise that is work is worthless. But
exercise that is play will give you health and long life. Exercise that is not play accentuates rather than
heals the split between body and spirit.
p. 100 Yes I can see Christ the football player. Just as I can see Christ the plumber, the artist, or the
carpenter. The Good News he brought two millenia ago is that the body is holy, the world is sacred,
and nothing human is alien to me. When he became man, we became men. The message of Bethlehem
was not simply that all men were created equal, but that all men were created unique. And they
would succeed or fail in the same way they fulfilled the possibilities of this uniqueness-the one
authentic life each one should lead.
p. 194 Everything is vanity and chasing the wind, said Ecclesiastes. Driving race cars, running
governments, amassing wealth, building cities: all this is vanity and chasing the wind. But,
said Ecclesiastes in an about-face, whatever you put your hand to, do it with all your might.
p. 242 A very small life, you say. So was Emily Dickinson's. Yet so full I can but envy her. Others,
of course, see it so empty they can only pity. She saw no moor. Saw no sea. Saw few people. The
few she loved died. But all the while, she played her game with God.
253 I told them of the beauties of our bodies, and how we needed play. I told them we were all
to be heroes in some way, and if we were heroic enough we would see God.
Final note-I tend to be inspired by the religious sections, but there are large parts of the book
that are spiritual and philosophical in a more generic sense, relying heavily on social science
and the author's background as a cardiologist.
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