My Sage from El Salvador

I was running on Sunday in Griffith Park. It was a 15-miler and I was scared. The last time I had gotten sick, and I as I mentioned before I have weird superstitions around this distance. It is when my body gave out in training last time and I was so ill after 13 miles. I played games in my head. Maybe I would only run 14 miles. Maybe 13. Maybe I would walk the last one.

I started and I felt good. I had eaten a big protein filled breakfast which turned out to be good because I could not run very fast without getting a cramp. It pulled me back. Important!

Griffith Park is filled with runners in training because it is the one beautiful place you can run on this side of town. Packs of runners go by in every direction. Some fast, some slow, some overweight, some training for marathons, some escaping their wives. But it feels like a secret community of runners, and it is cool.

I am always watching people trying to figure out if they are training for a marathon. Sometimes people ask me. Usually when I am near the end and probably look like a soldier coming back from war.

At around mile 3 a man saw me, smiled me, then ran across the road and started to run with me. He was really warm, probably in his fifties, and had a beautiful smile.

His name was Gonzalo. He said I looked strong, and really good. (It was not a pick-up line, I swear.) He has run 30 marathons and had run 20 miles the day before, up to the top of some inland mountain I have never heard of (He kept trying to show me.) Sunday he was doing his recover run--of 12 miles!!!

He had run since he was a teenager in El Salvador. He really loves running. You could tell. He kept telling me I would definitely finish, and I should run up the mountains, to make my legs stronger. He suggested 12 mile runs where the first three miles are all uphill. "It is so beautiful up there," he kept saying. "And it really strengthens your legs. It is the only way. Do the hills and mountains."

I listened and asked him for advice. He gave me lots, in a kind, not overbearing way.

Then I asked him:

"Do you think the marathon is about the mind or the body?"

"Oh, the body," he said. "The mind has nothing to do with it."

If you are strong enough, if you have put in the miles, you will finish. If you have not, you will not.

I don't know why I found this so deep. I guess because I think the marathon is all about the mind, about pushing yourself, about managing your head, about using your mind to keep going when your body is giving out. But he was saying the opposite: If you do not train, and prepare, and put in the miles, there is nothing your mind can do. You will not finish.

It is very practical. And demystifying.

And true for so very many things, don't you think?

So I leave you these words from Gonzalo, for whatever endeavor you are undertaking:

"Put in the miles."

Good luck!