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Last night I completed Again to Carthage, the sequel to the legendary novel Once a Runner, both by John L. Parker, Jr. I’d seen Once a Runner mentioned in quite a few places, but have yet to read it since it’s currently not in print. Used copies are highly sought after and can currently be found used on Amazon starting at $244! I purchased Again to Carthage from the Buffalo Fleet Feet several days after reading a good review on it in the November issue of Runners World. At the time I asked one of the owners if he had a copy of Once a Runner & was informed he did, but that it was currently lent to a friend. After finishing Again to Carthage, I might have to head back and see if I can get in line to borrow it.

The first thing that made me curious about the book was its title, but the page before the first chapter reveals it’s derived from Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice. The book tells the story of a former Olympic silver medal miler named Quenton Cassidy who, after the deaths of a running buddy from college and grandfather, finds himself longing for what he derived from running earlier in his life and begins training for the upcoming Olympic marathon trials.

I was shocked to discover the trials in the book were run in Buffalo, NY and followed the same route as the I ran at the end of October for the Niagara Falls International Marathon. It was quite a rush to relive such an experience as told by an elite (albeit fictional) runner describing the same exact sites I’d seen a short time ago.

I found the story itself took quite a while to gain momentum - early on I’d actually put the book down and started on another. Fortunately after I picked it back up, the tail two thirds of the book were quite riveting. Perhaps if I’d read Once a Runner first it would have been different for the first third? The story itself was interesting, but there were several things the author brought up in the book that really hit home, enough so I paged back through the book to find the page numbers they were located on.

The first thing that really caught my attention was a paragraph from a letter from Cassidy’s soon-to-be running coach after having contemplated whether Quenton has capable of running an Olympic level marathon on. Page 167 \ reads:

I also talked to that guy I mentioned in the Psych Department, used to be a runner? He said he doesn’t have anything concrete to back it up, but that he has long suspected that people who gravitate toward running or other endurance activities probably self-select for manic depression. Says he thinks it’s like an occupational hazard, and that what we’re essentially doing with heavy training is self-medicating with endorphins and such.

I’d like to think I’m far from being a manic depressive, but it scared me how easily a distance runner could be. Distance runners are a little crazy, there’s no doubt about that. They push themselves through the pain of long runs and then are rewarded with only the sense of accomplishment afterwards. Then the cycle repeats.

The second thing that struck a chord with me was on page 198:

When you’re a competitive runner in training you are constantly in a process of ascending.

That’s it.

It’s not something most human beings would give a moment of consideration to, that it is actually possible to be living for years in a state of constant betterment. To consider that you are better today that you were yesterday or a year ago, and that you will be better still tomorrow or next week or at a tournament time your senior year. That if you’re doing it right you are an organism constantly evolving toward some agreed-upon approximation of excellence. Wouldn’t that be at least one definition of a spiritual state?

When I was a runner it was something we lived every second of our lives. It was such a part of us that if we had ever given it a second’s thought, it would ave been a mental lapse, a sign of weakness. Of course I am getting better every day, I would have said, what the hell am I training for otherwise?

I can’t stand sitting around idle, nor do I have a lot of respect for others who do so lazily without reason. If one has the time & means, why shouldn’t one make themselves better? I read. I get outside. I work. And like the main character, I run. To me, it just seems it’s a given that one should live their life this way if they can. I particularly like running because the improvements I’m working towards are measurable. And they’re not relative to other runners - they are absolutes for myself and myself alone. I can see exactly when and how much training has paid off.

The last point that sunk in with me is what running becomes for a distance runner. From page 276:

Still, back in the cabin after a twenty-five-mile day, he would somethings recline in the tiny living-dining-sleeping room, leafing through his training calendar, thinking: How did I ever do this all those years without going crazy? Or am I presuming too much?

<snip>

But Cassidy remembered something Liquori once said as they were ambling along at the back of the pack on the Tobacco Road loop. He said “If you want to train really well, you have to be a little bored.”

What on earth do you mean?” Cassidy said.

Just that if you really want to be focused on training, those two runs every day need to be the most interesting things going on in your life.”

But, later, thinking about his time at the cabin in Newberry, he knew that Liquori was right. All those months his afternoon workout was unquestionably the most interesting thing that happened to him all day. Everything else was padding, resting, waiting.

When I was in the last month of my marathon training, the runs really were all I looked forward to. Going to work or whatever else I was doing aside from running was merely filler until that next double digit miler. It’s great to have something to look forward to, but a little depressing to think of all the other things I could have been doing. Since I haven’t been running for a while, the thing I’ve been looking forward to right now is soccer twice a week. Instead of the next x-mile run, I’m looking forward each Tuesday & Thursday. I like having it this way, but do wish I had some running to throw in there as well.

The weather here in Buffalo has been very nasty the last couple days. I have my running gear with me, but there’s no way I’m going outside. When I finished the book last night, I wished I was in the middle of my marathon again. The book may very well push me back into training.

This entry was posted on Monday, December 24th, 2007 at 5:59 pm and is filed under reading, running. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.