Quiet cornfields

Last weekend, a friend of mine completed his first 100k – just over 62 miles.

It was an inspiring accomplishment and I was honored to be a part of it; he asked me to help pace him for a 14-mile stretch that kicked off the back half of his run. 

As he and I do when we run together, we caught up. Talked about family and work and life. He explained that the last nine miles of our time together were the most brutal of the course he was running. 

There were no hills, obstacles, or anything like that. In fact, there was nothing physically any more imposing about this part of his path than any other. Instead, these nine miles were a battle of wits.

For the entire stretch, there was nothing around us. We were just east of Booneville, Missouri and whatever mental image you now have of our journey is probably directionally correct.

It was a shotgun gravel path with no end in sight. It wasn’t even clear when one cornfield would end and we were passing a new one. It was all the same.

We talked about the world today, how we are so preoccupied with anything at all, that we never have to stand the sound of our own thoughts. You have to work exceptionally hard to escape that faint, humming background noise that so pervasively impedes on our 21st century lives… if we even are aware of it and want to.

These quiet cornfields that my friend had to run through – on the way to Booneville without me and on the way back toward Columbia with me – might be a mental mountain. But they are also exactly what he, and each of us, needs.

Some people hide from these quiet places. Others are so caught up in the tumult of life that they never realize just how loud things are. I suspect many that do find respite struggle to cope with the solitude. My friends, like most, knows it is hard. But unlike others, he embraces it anyway.

The quiet can be overwhelming, so we reach for our phone, the remote, or whatever other white noise we can find to hide from the nothingness of silence.

That seems to me a good indication we’ve lost a part of us. We should be proactively seeking out our personal “quiet cornfields” to save us from our own distracted minds.