Chasing Dreams

(This piece is for my book-in-progress titled See How We Run: Best Writings from 25 Years of Running Commentary. I am posting an excerpt here each week, this one from January 2003.)

Desmond O’Neill numbers himself among a rare species: runners whose beginnings date from the 1950s. Which is to say, with nearly 50 years of wear, their feet and legs don’t work as smoothly as they once did – or as the longtime runners would like.

When I made passing mention of a light shoe that had made my running easier this past year, the Santa Barbara attorney responded, “I have to go to the big heavy clunkers-for-Clydesdales, usually Asics Kayanos. I would love to be able to get out in a pair of race shoes, or something a lot lighter than the Kayano anyway, and let ’er rip.”

He called this “a good recurring running dream. The nightmare running dream is arriving at the start of a race either late, or without my shoes, or both. Do you ever have dreams/nightmares about running?”

Oh, do I! At the risk of exposing the darkest reaches of my mind, I’ll confess to a few dreams to see if they trigger any nods of recognition in you.

One year I ran the Royal Victoria Marathon twice – first in my sleeping mind and then for real. The pre-race dream had me needing a ride to the starting line. We found all four of our car’s tires flat.

I told my wife Barbara about the dream. Her instant interpretation: “you’re worried about your feet giving out, or maybe just about feeling flat and tired.”

My marathon wound down into a survival shuffle. I hoped to see Barbara at 25 miles, because I’d rehearsed a greeting for her. “I’m flat and tired,” I would say, “but not REtired.”

We missed connections, but it’s just as well she didn’t see me. Such shuffling isn’t a pretty sight in a loved one.

Eventually I finished. The memories of that day are better than the dreams were the night before.

Many of my dreams deal with frustrations: can’t find the starting line... can’t get my shoes on... can’t pin on my number... can’t set my watch to 0:00... can’t find my way on a course that passes through the maze-like corridors and closed doors of office buildings or hotels.

A student of dreams would have to tell me what this all means. It may have to do with fears of ambitions being blocked.

Rich Englehart, a professor of psychology as well as a running dreamer, says, “Most dreams are related to memories or to anticipation of impending events. I’d expect some of the ‘can’t find shoes’ or ‘missed connection’ dreams have to do with anticipation and anxiety over an impending race, or over a task that seems race-like in your understanding.”

Rich recalls “running” one entire Boston Marathon in his sleep, “waking up thrilled and satisfied with how well I’d done, only to be appalled to learn when I woke up that it was Patriot’s Day morning and that I still had to run the race. I ran it very poorly and attributed it to the fact that I was completely flat from the effort of the dream.”

My oldest dreams go back to nights before high school and college races, when sleep came fitfully and made the dreamscape easier to replay. My legs turned to cooked spaghetti and wouldn’t support me. I wound up “running” on all-fours.

Another old standby dream reappeared the night before I wrote these lines. While headed into a crowd of runners, I looked down to see that I’d forgotten to wear shorts. What does that tell you, Dr. Freud?

UPDATE FROM 2015

I don’t race anymore; haven’t really raced since the 1980s. But I still have racing dreams.

The “crawling” dream rarely surfaces anymore. Now that I’m truly slow, I more often dream about being really fast.

I run with the leaders, way over my head, amazed at the split times. Finally realizing I don’t belong there, I panic and never reach the finish before waking up. This may have to do with what I imagine to be potential never fully tapped.

[Hundreds of previous articles, dating back to 1998, can be found at joehenderson.com/archive/. Many books of mine, old and recent, are now available in  as many as three different formats: (1) in print from Amazon.com; (2) as e-books from Amazon.com and BarnesandNoble.com; (3) as PDFs for e-reader devices and apps, from Lulu.com. Latest released was Going Far. Other titles: Home Runs, Joe’s Journal, Joe’s Team, Learning to Walk, Long Run Solution, Long Slow Distance, Marathon Training, Run Right Now, Run Right Now Training Log, See How We Run, and Starting Lines, plus Rich Englehart’s book about me, Slow Joe.]