Big Game Hunting – Tales from on Safari

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Not very long ago I participated in a back-country running race. A one hundred and twenty five kilometre foot race that wound its way through the back country and over the summits of three mountains. A hellish trial that went by the name of the Canadian Deathrace. I just went in it on a five-man relay team, reducing my portion of the race to a nice, manageable 20 kilometres of mountainous suffering, but there was a solo category for people who would race the entire thing alone. Twenty minutes before the start of the race, while I was waiting in line to use the washroom, I met one of the runners from the solo category.

"So, are you a soloist?"

"No. You?" I'm not very sociable in the morning.

"Yeah. I'm running it solo."

I nod. "Good luck." Now please go away.

"I'm not really much of a runner."

"What?"

"I said I'm not really much of a runner."

"Shouldn't you be? To, ah, to be running it solo and all?"

"Yeah, but I don't really like to run. It takes to much time. But I'm good at just muscling through stuff, I can tough it out."

"Really?"

I am fascinated by the brutal, suicidal, inefficiency of his technique.

When the race starts, my soloist acquaintance winds up right in front of me as we set out on the parade lap – a one kilometre loop through town before we head out into the mountains and the wide open. I immediately become aware of something unusual. Something out of the ordinary about the way he runs.

For one thing, while his arms pump, his elbows flap like chicken's wings, as if he were trying to attain lift-off. For another thing – another, more dismaying thing - as he runs his legs raise maniacally until his knees are at chest height, making him look shockingly like Wile E. Coyote sneaking up on the Road Runner. I am fascinated by the brutal, suicidal, inefficiency of his technique. Soon I notice that he too has become fascinated with his technique, at least that part of it which pertains to his right foot. He casts worried, scowling glances down at the high flying appendage as he careens down the street like a Disney cartoon villain – like Cruella Deville with a loose high heel.

And then he's down. Down and examining his foot with great concern. And I never see him again. And keep in mind that at this point we have not yet made it out of town and into the mountains, have not even really started.

If you don't like to run, if you're "not much of a runner," if you'd rather not run long distances, then perhaps a one hundred and twenty five kilometre race is not really what you want.

It's something to think about, anyway.

So, is the moral of this carelessly assembled sermon to not pursue things lest you be surprised by what you get? No, no, nothing so hideously sheltering as that. You know me better than that by now. The point is, I think, to think about why you are pursuing the things that you chase, to think about what it is that you really want.

Because having a tiger on a leash really only means that you're tied to a tiger.