Some are vicious
some are fools
and others blind
to see in me
one of their kind
I see and speak from a point you will never understand. I see and speak with hinsights you should be happy not to ever know. I see and speak from the dark.
Let me give you a glimse. Aged 27 my mother commited suicide. I was 3 years old. Turbulent times followed to put it mildly, as this crime left my father and the rest of my family devastated, no wonder. Aged 7, I witnessed the death struggle of my father, dying 31 years old to a heart condition. This loss came as no surprise, I had “seen” it happen weeks in advance. It was a logical consequence of events. I was “deported” to a loveless fate at a hostfamily in another part of the country and this misery went on for 5 years. Then came almost 7 years on a boarding school, a times a very rough affair with both physical and mental abuses, not in the sexual sense, but still. It wasnt too easy.
All these years I had only one person left to bury – my beloved grandmother. It is now two years ago that I did. I dont think anyone can grasp the consequences of all this, of being the last in the entire family tree. Grasp what kind of feelings I have dealt with. Grasp the enormity of being totally alone in the world. Historically, it can be compared to the survivors of World War II, many of these, by the way, commiting suicide by the burden of their losses. But I hate the concept of being a victim and I ask for no mercy. I just find myself on a special path and find it hard to take many of the “dramas” of the ordinary man too seriously. I am on another scale.
So why live ? It is indeed a very relevant question ! Answers… we all have our own. The interesting thing is whether we have constructed our opinions ourselves or just live by the conventions, by the expectations of our family and partners, and whether we have the courage to live and act accordingly to who we really are and what we really feel. Let me tell you this: everything else is absurd ! You will be under ground soon enough.
Yes, so why not live ? Why not take the risk of being yourself and to accept the consequences. Why not address the important issues in your life and leave the less important behind. Living by fear is a waste of time and life… and we are only here for such a short time anyways. So go for the things you love ! Because love is the light in the dark, and there are so many things to love indeed. For me, running is one of them.
I guess I have done a few marathons here and there, been around. However, there are still lots of races on the TO-DO list, lots of new experiences ahead, lots of new friends out there, lots of excitement and challenges in the years to come. I could even begin to do speed work and such stuff, examining some of the parameters that I have down-prioritized by large until now (for good reasons). There is lots of unfinished business.
The latter has become quite clear to me in the fascinating process of writing my first book “ELSK AT LØBE – med maratonbogen” (in english: “RUN TO LOVE – with the maraton book”),
… the book being ready for presale e.g. here.
I have the pleasure of co-authoring this book with one of the most renowed scientists worldwide in the area of human excercise, the danish professor Bente Klarlund Pedersen. We are very excited about the outcome: it is a rich, beautiful, inspirering and scientific book for everyone interested in running, full of insights and stuff you can actually use, stuff that will evolve and transform you ! Yes, sorry for being a bit self-indulgent.. but hey, its my first book, dude, and I quite proud about it. Cheer a bit with me.
Myself.. I have learned TONS of stuff about my own running… and wrong-doings. OMG.. I have made some pretty bad mistakes over the years, I realize that now. So yes, even after 202 marathons… one can feel pretty fresh and ignorant. But now I know where and how to wise up and I look forward to attack some of the goals I have set for myself. I’ll get back to those another time.
Hey, so what is new ? Well, for me I can take delight in turning 25 again and at the same time growing to a new century. Puzzled ? I am of course taking about my numbers of marathons ! Fact is that I ran #200 at beautiful Blokhus, Denmark, last Sunday, together with lots of runnings mates kindly celebrating me.
It was a very special day and it was very special to have just those people around, even though I could mention a long list of friends that I would have loved to see too.
Anyways, the 25-blocks to #200 looks like this:
25 27.08.2006 Landskrona (Sweden) Pictures
50 30.06.2007 Kristianopel (Sweden) Pictures
75 20.04.2008 Zürich (Switerzerland) Pictures
100 02.11.2008 Skovmaren (Denmark) Pictures
125 26.04.2009 London (England) Pictures
150 19.09.2009 Vänersborg (Sweden) Pictures
175 21.03.2010 Rome (Italy) Pictures
200 22.08.2010 Blokhus (Denmark) Pictures
As to be deducted from the list I have completed my second set of 100 marathons in less than 22 months, not bad for a part time dad with a challenging career as well. But then again.. has the time been spend well ? Who knows, really, I guess some choices in life makes other choices or options impossible and I have for sure been quite one-sided on this marathoneering for some time now. But would I have chosen differently with the knowledge I have now ?
Not for a minute !
I have once again visited one of the most important places on Earth for me, the small hotel Dalseter high up in the norwegians mountains, the place where I learned to ski (age 2), hike (age 4) and swim (age 5) and where I throughout my childhood found salvation in the mountains, in the vast landscapes and the scents of free Nature and summer flowers, where the whistling of the wind and the squirling of the water falls in the valleys ignited the deeper thoughts on the matters of life and death and the pursuit of happiness.
When I watch my own kids now and my fellow contemporaries I realize that I was given a special gift that not many receive, a gift well coined by the author Hermann Hesse: “Happiness is a talent not an object !”.
The mountains help us understand our minute frame in Time. But few people can handle the perception of their own life set in the context to the geological timeframe – against which we become utterly unimportant and so absurdly small. However, if you have buried your entire pack of ancestors and most other important figures from the childhood, you realize that geology stands and mankind falls. You realize that it is really unimportant if you believe in God A or B, if your are rich or poor, if your fellows think well of you or not, actually, all our “conventional must-do’s” become ridiculeous when measured against the timeframe of the mountains and the infite span of Time. You realize that our “realities” are merely interpretations, subject to change and indeed products of the randomness of context for our existence. I realized all this very early in life – in the Norwegian mountains. I guess this is part of why they are so special to me.
Now, Im trying to pass the wisdom to my kids but I realize that it can’t be. Instead, I realize my uniqueness and complete separation from most others. Of most of my friends many will first even understand this in 20-30 years to come, if ever. You should all take delight in not knowing !
I am forced to the opposite and live a life in complete confrontation to truthness, integrity and persuit of personal happiness, all the things the mountains encourage and demand. And no other “normal tasks” in our “normal” everyday world fits this better than… marathon running. In this manner it all adds up nicely: psychologically I return to the mountains in each race – if just for a moment – and to the embedded wisdom and consequence. And in contrast to the deep thinking alone on the mountain sides, I find so many wonderful friends in the running, people with the same passion and the same lust for endurance and curiosity for limit testing. Conceptwise, the marathons become the mountains and here we also fall prey to something bigger than ourselves. Ultimately the marathon timeframe will eat us all in due course.
So both in the mountains and in the marathon pursuit we are left with the same task: to excel in our Time, to create our own happiness and to maintain our important relations – fragile as they are. The Nature will clear out the rest and both the mountains and the marathons will outlast us. And just as the mountains possess a cruel consequence in bad weather and the most beauty of moments in sunshine, just so do the marathons, symbolically. We marathoneers strive to enjoy those special days of sunshine and to endure through the rainy times. We mountaineers anticipate lurking dangers and the shifts of weather – and act accordingly in order to survive. Remember, the mountains keep no memory of their victims – and our place in History is very soon forgotten, our existence, our careers, our loveaffairs, our families. The mountains stay put, the marathons stay put. We humans do not. We do not !
We only borrow a piece in Time – we have to use it well.