The In-Between

“The Space Between.”  If you are in certain age groups, you might recognize the title of this gorgeous Dave Matthews song.  It’s a really great song.  I’ve run a bunch of miles with Dave keeping me company.  There are so many “spaces between” in our lives, the in-betweens where most of life’s work is found, places of endeavoring to get the most out of life, especially an active life.  As we move into our 2024 racing season, I’ve been thinking about a few of these in-betweens, the places where we learn to see ourselves with fresh eyes.  Psychologists use the word “liminality” to describe life transitions, sometimes difficult ones.  They are the “in-between” spaces. The places where we pause, for a time, suspended, the places where we hold our breath between no longer this but not yet that. These are the spaces where we come face to face with the inevitability of change.  When we are working toward that full, flourishing life, we are by necessity going to need to embrace change. 

The end of our Virtual Challenge is at hand and soon, for some, there will be an in-between.  “The Space Between.”  The in-between of participating only in a virtual event or of being in community with others.  Or maybe it can be the space where there is room for “this and that,” a place where two things can be good at the same time.  For some of our athletes, there is comfort in a virtual event, less pressure, less structure, and more anonymity.  Virtual events lead to goals accomplished but often do not lead to connections made. Connection is as important to our health as is the accumulation of many minutes of heart-pumping exercise.  If you have enjoyed the virtual challenge, consider entering a race.  The community of people that will support you will not notice your gear, your watch, your distance, your shape, or your speed.  They will see you, another person trying to live a better, healthier way, and you will be welcomed.  They will reach out a hand to help you move across “the space between.”

For some, liminality comes as the space between a change in distance.  We sit in the indecision of how far to go.  “Am I ready for that first mile?”  “Am I trained enough for my first 5K?”  “The 5K is comfortable, so is it time for a 10K?”  These questions follow us all the way up to the marathon and beyond and are the questions that mark this transition as a time of growth.  The answer to all the questions that bridge the in-between of growth is “Yes, I am ready.”  The bridge is built on our training. Training will make you ready.

There is, however, another liminal space around distance and it is a terrible in-between, a space not for deciding to go longer but for accepting it is time to go shorter. It is for most ordinary humans, a place we will arrive at sooner or later.  It is the in-between on the other side of a long life of running, as we begin to let go of a distance that has felt more like a love affair than a road run.  For some of us, it is in the space between the marathon and no marathons anymore.  The grief of that change for me was exquisite.  I deeply, passionately love the marathon, but to keep running to the end of my days, a time came when I had to get it go.  Ironically, it was from the marathon that I learned, just a little, to accept what comes, live with the uncontrollable, to “play my hand.”   Our truest love is running, and the terrible truth is, to hold on to one love, sometimes we must let go of another.  There is the space between the marathon and a half-marathon, then a half-marathon and a 10K, until finally, we languish in the in-between of running a little or not running at all.  Our goal moves from 26 miles, to “please just let me keep running.”  We can, if we are wise, bridge this liminal space with some new loves and a new artform called adaptation.  We swim a little bit, we spend more time on a bike, or we discover joy in a long, long power walk. We learn to play pickleball. This is a hard, sometimes scary transition, and there can be a blanket of grief wrapped around us in this space, as for a time, the space can feel cold.  We can choose to stay stuck in the in-between or move forward, not in ways less than before, just in ways different than before.  A race is a race, walk or run. Training logs are still testaments and testimonies, records of our commitment to our health, to ourselves, even without a single entry involving speed work.  We walk up the hill and run down now, but a hill is still a hill and still a way to test our tenacity.    

Liminal spaces, the spaces between, in the end, represent change.  The pause between the before and the after, between what I could once do and what I can now do, and sometimes a reframing of who we see ourselves to be.   Runners know what philosophers teach from our miles and miles on the road.  After all, most runners are just philosophers in running shoes. Both Aristotle and the athlete know that change is inevitable.  We go longer, we go shorter.  We go fast, we slow down.  We glide, we shuffle. We are cruising toward success; our world breaks apart. We win, we lose it all.  We grieve, we recover, we triumph. We change.  What I insist, however, is that there is one thing that remains the same.  A way of seeing ourselves that we can hold onto as “us” for as long as we want and need to. This never changes, it is forever. We are runners.  We move through life knowing that brutal and beautiful are both part of being human.  Brutal and beautiful are the markers and flags that tell us which way to go along the course.  They keep us from getting lost. They mark the finish line that is waiting for us when we’ve come to the end of our epic race.  We are runners.  You see, a runner is more than “one who runs.”  A runner is a thinker, a philosopher, a mentor, a wise and wonderful teacher.  Someone who can live in the “in-between”.  We just are.  We are runners.  You are a runner, so come and run with us.  2024 is waiting for all of you