It's a Festival, Not a Race

comparison is the thief of joy: a running reminder

Yesterday I caught Jeff Chu’s wonderful and challenging reflection, On Mockery, calling us to radical empathy with people with whom we disagree—even, perhaps, with people who don’t always affirm core aspects of our identity. This is an especially powerful word coming from Jeff, a gay man whose Chinese-American family has not been universally supportive of his queerness, nor of his marriage to his husband Tristan. Not everyone will agree with Jeff’s view on this, and I would never ask someone to. I also want to say, and Jeff would agree, that letting people love us the best they can does not mean putting up with abuse. Loving oneself is holy work and necessitates good boundaries and self-kindness. What interested me most about the post was a comment on the article, in which a reader praised Jeff for being “farther along” than she was on the path of love and understanding.

Jeff responded: 

A point of clarification: I am not “farther along” than you are! This isn’t a race with a single track. If we were to sit down for a chat, I’m sure I would learn as much from you, if not more, as you do from me. This is really important to me, because for too long, we’ve treated faith and indeed life as if there were some roadmap to success, as if there were a progress checklist. 

I was moved by these words—and I also realized I embodied them in a very small way last weekend. 

As I mentioned last Friday, as the Blue Room went out that morning, I was readying myself for an adventure in the woods: the Pemberton 24, an ultrarunning event in which participants run a 5K every hour for 24 hours—or as many as they want to do. A friend told me about this event last year, and the minute she began describing it, I knew I needed to try it.

I wasn’t disappointed. I've done upwards of ten Ragnar relays, a handful of ultras, and some of the big flagship marathons (Disney, Marine Corps, Chicago). While I've enjoyed them all, the Pemberton 24 is my favorite running event by far. The spirit of the event was full of wacky friendliness—each loop had a theme, with costumes encouraged, including an “inflatables” loop—yep, as in these:

Not a Pemberton pic, but yes, there were dinos there.

The logistics are also top notch. The music is fun and the emcee encouraging, and the race dictator (ahem, director) fist bumps all the finishers, every loop he can. Campfires burn all night and day, keeping the chill at bay. The food is plentiful and varied; you haven’t lived until you’ve scarfed down a thick slice of bacon wrapped in a pancake after running through the night. Even the portapotties have handwashing stations nearby. Those little things aren’t so little when you’re sleeping in a tent in between loops in the woods.

Me before the “fruit loop.”

But another key reason this event feels so good? It isn’t really a race in any regular sense of the word. Yes, you get extra points if you finish each loop in the top five, and there were a few individual and team awards given, but the emphasis is on completion of the loops, full stop. As long as you’re at the starting line at the top of the hour, and cross the finish line before the next loop begins, that 5K counts. That means a walker who comes in at 59:59 gets the same credit for a completed loop that an eight-minute-miler does. 

Of course, runners are a goal-oriented people, so there was plenty of conversation between 5Ks about how many loops folks had done, were hoping to do, etc. But once we started going, that stuff melted away. When you start over every hour, and with everyone pursuing their own goals, it’s literally impossible to compare performance in the moment. That person who just passed me so swiftly may be naturally faster, sure, or they may be running just a couple strong loops and calling it a day. And the person I pass may be conserving their energy to complete all 24 loops, which I most definitely was not. Comparison is the thief of joy, as the saying goes, and the structure of this event works against comparison in some wonderful ways. There’s a reason the Pemberton website calls itself a festival of 5Ks. It’s not really a race at all. 

Found this little guy when I took down my tent.

The Pemberton is a physical manifestation of what Jeff Chu is writing about: Life isn't a race with a single track. In that same comment, he goes on to say, “My people have traditionally preferred to see life as cyclical: We move again and again through these different seasons, and we learn and we grieve and we struggle and we grow and we feel things and we try to make sense of them.”

Our American culture is not this way, to say the least. How often do we treat something as a race that really isn’t? The church I serve has a leadership retreat each fall in which we do some planning for the upcoming year. The last couple of years, we’ve come up with a short list of priorities to help us focus our ministry. Many of us (myself included) slip up and call them goals from time to time, but that language of priorities is intentional, and I believe, more gracious. Goals are binary—you either achieve them or you don’t. Priorities allow for flexibility, learning, and growth.

Admittedly, I went into Pemberton with a goal: to complete at least 12, and I was excited to pull it off—but really, that goal was secondary to my priorities: 
To spend time in the woods. 
To listen to my body. 
To soak up the vibe.
To laugh at how ridiculous this whole thing is.
To enjoy time by myself. 
To be grateful that I can still do this. 

What becomes possible when we let go of goals in favor of priorities, and comparison in favor of mutual evolution and accompaniment? What happens when we treat life as a festival rather than a race?

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What I’m Up To

I’m preaching again this Sunday at 10:15 at Trinity Presbyterian Church, Herndon; join us in person or via livestream. (But MaryAnn, didn’t you preach last weekend? Yep, they get me twice in a row! You can also view last Sunday’s sermon at that link, and decide whether I looked tired and was walking funny.)

Just a few more hours to upgrade to an annual paid subscription at a 20% discount! Two additional posts each month.

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Link Love

Musician Nick Cave responds to a young person who asks what’s the point of pursuing anything in this bizarre and temporary world.

Steady on.