Thanks for joining me for another edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog. This past week I ran the 10th edition of the annual Christmas half marathon and it had me thinking about an old rowing movie.
The Skulls is a movie from the year 2000 featuring Joshua Jackson and Paul Walker. It was popular amongst my friends and I in high school because it featured a very unrealistic depiction of rowing, and there weren’t a whole lot of those on the big screen at the time, or since then for that matter.
Joshua Jackson’s character Luke McNamara is your typical underdog. He comes from an underprivileged background, makes it on to the rowing team where he outworks everyone to earn his way into a good college.
From there he becomes obsessed with gaining social status through a secret society called the Skull and Bones. It is there he meets his Skulls “soulmate” (read frat brother) Caleb Mandrake played by Paul Walker. Drama and crime ensue and the movie is far from a blockbuster, but there are worse ways to spend two hours.
Caleb and Luke come from opposite ends of the socioeconomic spectrum. Caleb is the poster boy from the Creedence Clearwater Revival song, a senator’s son, silver spoon in hand.
There are a pair of matching scenes in which the two “soulmates” help each other in the areas they are each more suited to. Caleb ties Luke’s bowtie, and Luke helps Caleb pick a lock in the respective scenes to which they remark to each other, “the skills of a misspent youth”.
Both characters help their friend, and both skills are valuable in the context of the film and otherwise. There is a tangible sense of regret and envy from each of the characters to the other, feeling that the grass was greener for the way they each grew up.
I ditched the captain, who had invited me out to Buffalo wild wings, in order to embark on my traditional holiday trek. I’m glad I did, and I’m happy with my choice. But, it got me thinking about the skills learned over 10 years of this tradition, which by many might consider, a misspent youth.
What started out as a planned training day while I was on call, morphed into a coping mechanism from being away from home and then into something more. Over the years the Christmas half marathon has taken place at home, in the snow, on a treadmill, and through the woods.
It has been a run of celebration, a run of grieving, and a run to stave off boredom. It has been exciting and much anticipated, and it has been slogged through and checked off the to do list most unceremoniously.
More than anything though the tradition has endured. After ten years, all the changes in my life and the world around, all the stress and added activity of the holiday season, this run has been a constant. 13.1 miles of self reflection.
There is an opportunity cost to everything. Time marches on, and every thing that we choose to occupy ourselves with, necessitates a removal of another choice that might have been made.
Endurance athletics in particular carry a high opportunity cost because they are often time consuming solo endeavors. Still, I feel the same way about them as I do about the Skulls movie, and the notion of skills from a misspent youth. There are certainly worse ways to spend two hours.
Thanks for joining me, stay safe and stay sweaty my friends.