PEACE OF MIND: Can Our Running Kids 'Save the World'? by Marc Bloom

Remember the days when running was so outrageous it was considered something of a pacifist act? I thought about that recently as our nation prepared for war and the world seemed like a cauldron with conflict everywhere. We are practically numb from the daily reports of mayhem and impending catastrophe.
Where might running fit into this picture?
Those of us of a certain age remember fondly that when Bill Rodgers emerged in the early '70s there was much made of his draft status as a conscientious objector. That phrase seems so quaint now. The Vietnam War was going on and Rodgers wanted no part of it. Instead, he served his community as a hospital orderly.
When Rodgers started winning races, his humble, friendly manner and light-as-air stride gave him a purity that embodied peace and harmony. Bill loved everyone, and everyone loved him. His persona made everything good seem possible.
Like Rodgers, Frank Shorter, at first, existed on society's margins. He was not as genial and warm as Rodgers, but, with his 2 percent body fat and fiercely independent approach, Shorter became our best symbol of running as counterculture. On the run he challenged hostile motorists and when he competed he wore a ponytail, not as a fashion statement but a political statement. Runners were a separate society then, part of the Woodstock Generation. Make love not war was the anthem. Maybe it was naïve. When a revolutionary like John Lennon tried to promote that idea, he was were killed.
"Imagine all the people..." Well, you know how it goes.
Eventually running "went commercial" and, in a troubling paradox, is now considered the norm in a country reeking of obesity. (Have you noticed the increase in "Clydesdale" divisions at races?)Nowadays the President of the United States can be seen on the cover of Runner's World. It should be also noted that the French foreign minister who's been leading the anti-war position at the U.N. is a marathon runner. Hmmm...
Running is no longer a symbol of something greater, of a way of life that might bring people together. It no longer offers innocence or purity, at least not for us adults--we who have managed to screw things up.
But I wondered how running might affect the thinking of our youth, who, as always, are our hope for better times ahead. At our New Jersey state indoor meet, and then in phone conversations with athletes around the country, I asked high schoolers if running affected their view of the world.
Matt Forys, distance star at Howell (NJ) High: "Running opens your mind. You get different perspectives. You meet people from different cultures. It's competitive but you're 'with' other runners."Keith Krieger, state cross-country runner-up at Cherokee (NJ) High: "Running forms a lot of camaraderie. You run with people of different nationalities."
Justin Scheid, state Parochial B cross-country winner at Pope John (NJ) High: "In running, you don't think about people's differences. You get to meet new people and make friends. Everyone is the same. I'm friends with Mohamed (Khadrouri, state 3200 winner from Morocco)."
Pete Hess, conference cross-country champion at Toms River North (NJ) High: "Running gives you a broader outlook. You come into contact with all kinds of kids. I've traveled to meets and talked with kids from around the world. There are a lot of kids in my school who 'hate the world.'"
Jessica Pall, 800 runner at Hopewell Valley (NJ) High: "Running unites everyone. It helps you understand other people. I wrote my college essay for Yale about that-about meeting new people."
Meghan Owen, state track and cross-country champion at Killingly (CT) High: "Running makes you connected to a good group of people. When you go to the national meets, you see what's out there. You're more in touch with the world around you."
Hakon DeVries, state indoor 1600 winner at John Jay (NY) High: "I definitely believe that running makes you feel better about the future. I guess that's optimism. In running, we all get along. Why can't everyone else get along?"
Chris Solinsky, Foot Locker national cross-country champion at Stevens Point (WI) High: "Running helps you learn about other cultures. In Wisconsin, I talked to someone I ran against from Belgium. Running opens your eyes to different things, more than in your own country."
Ari Lambie, state and New England champion at Bromfield (MA) High: "Running and the feeling of endurance is a hopeful thing. I've enjoyed meeting runners in San Diego. We all share something important. Back home, I'm not around people who look at running like I do."
While our society may not celebrate running any longer as a cultural force, all of us in running are still in touch with running's remarkable powers. We try and pass those powers onto our children, and as the athletes' comments seem to indicate, the lessons are being learned.
When in the late '70s running went from the fringes to exercise chic, we took the rap of being part of the Me Decade, of being self-absorbed and ignoring the plight of others. While a certain running-bum narcissism was unavoidable, I've always felt that running, by and large, had the opposite effect: it humbled us, stripped us of pretension, enabling us to better embrace others. Can anyone hold a grudge after a 10-miler?
The kids are right: running can bring people together. The early runners, Shorter and Co., knew this: running offered a new way of looking not only at the self but the world.
Prefontaine thrived on this idea. He embraced the runners' life he saw in Scandanavia and wanted to bring the Finns to the U.S. to compete. Pre fought the AAU for athletes' rights to travel freely. He wanted to spread the word, the word of togetherness if you will, through running.
Pre was an idealist. Runners are nothing if not idealists. At least we were once. We knew we could always run longer and faster, and now our kids know that, and the world is theirs for the changing.Let's urge them on. Let's make sure our kids are proud of being runners, proud of the sensitivity running gives them, proud of mixing with peers from many lands. Last fall's Foot Locker meet had athletes who'd recently come to the U.S. from Morocco, Kenya, Somalia and France. They shared rooms and meals and a kind of intimacy in competition.
Let's not shy away from running's inevitable separation from the mainstream. Running still makes you different. It is still something the masses will never understand. Running gives kids the power to be different, to go out on their own and challenge authority if necessary.
As we look at the world today, the complexities are perhaps too much to grasp, the wounds too deep to heal, the rage too great to ease. We don't know what to do so we turn to our young, our reliable, naked young, naïve like we once were but fueled with endurance--as Ari Lambie said, the hopefulness of endurance.