This is a dream from 10 or 15 years ago that I happened to remember recently. Nothing special was going on in my life at the time, at least that I experienced as being particularly noteworthy.
I t is the wee hours, about one or two o’clock in the morning. I am outdoors lying on my back in a grassy meadow.
It is a pleasant, warm, quiet night. A full moon bathes everything in its blue-white glow, in which I am basking.
I am still myself — a man. But I am fully pregnant and moments away from giving birth. It will not be a son or daughter, however. The person I am about to give birth to is… Myself.
There is no pain, just an exhilarating, quietly radiant joy suffusing my entire body and mind. I am completely in the moment, anticipating what is to come, yet already fulfilled, wanting nothing more, nothing less. My whole being is full, my heart filled.
As I look up, I see my mother and my only sister standing above me in attendance. They do not say anything but they too are happy, quiet, and expectant.
I am at complete peace, awaiting what is about to happen.
Years down the road, with new motivation after a long hiatus from racing, I am finally taking the opportunity to try making a little hay from lessons I began learning about training long ago. Only recently have those lessons finally sunk in enough to make a difference.
This two-part posting includes my selection of “best of Tom (Tinman) Schwartz” links at the end of Part 2. These point to articles, interviews, podcasts, and videos covering his views on training, plus Schwartz’s handy online training calculator for targeting specific training paces based on a current race performance.
It’s curious how life will sometimes toss a bone your way. In some cases it turns out to be just a dry bone lacking in marrow, and is better passed over. Other times, though, you gnaw on it a little, hesitantly at first, a bit distractedly, and then find, perhaps despite yourself, your appetite is whetted. Then with a little more nibbling and tentative chewing, the juices begin to flow.
What you might have viewed at first as something not really worth the extra bother, you begin to embrace. Then as time passes, you find yourself pursuing it with an extra enthusiasm you had tabled or forgotten. And you outstrip the original idea and begin taking it further than originally intended.
This happened for me recently when the idea of running a local 5K road race together “just for fun” was suggested by a running friend of mine. For a dozen years, I had been content to run a couple of days a week for fitness and general enjoyment, because I had always loved running and training just for their own sake. In earlier years, I had been involved in high-level competition — for several years in high school and college, and for another period in my mid-30s — but thought that “fire” had been burned through already. I did not anticipate ever competing again.
