BY JOHN SWART VOICE Correspondent
Being humbled can occur in many ways, at any time. The occasions we tend to remember, or that our friends remind us of, are those during which the humbling takes us down a notch. Perhaps proven to be wrong about something we're sure we were right on, a sporting endeavour we thought we'd crush and didn't, something that failed to go anywhere close to plan. Our egos may get bruised, but we pick ourselves up and carry on.
Being humbled by good fortune, something so astonishingly wonderful that it takes your breath away, is more rare, and can change us forever.
I’d been running for 17 minutes, every stride uphill, toward a fork in the road just beyond the ruins of John D’Arcy’s magnificent Clifden Castle on the west coast of Ireland. On my left, a narrow, stone-fenced road dropped to the sheer walls of Clifden Bay. To the right, Connemara’s Sky Road climbed to its 200-metre summit, providing a spectacular vista of sheltered beaches, precipitous cliffs, and Inishturk and Talbot Islands in the Atlantic Ocean beyond.
Left and down I went, postponing the ultimate decision whether to climb to the top of the Sky Road or not for five or six kilometres, when the two roads meet again to complete the loop.
Early June sunshine warmed this inhospitable coast, nurturing brilliant displays of wildflowers everywhere. Masses of golden yellow Irish gorse, violet rhododendrons, and delicate scarlet red fuchsia sheathed every ancient stone wall, yellow flags blanketed soggy marshes, and flimsy white bog cotton thrived, immersing one in a landscape so intense the chore of running evaporated.
I ran past two elderly lads, oblivious to the cliffs mere metres behind them, holding rakes in one hand while hoisting dark bottles of lager with the other. They were tilling a tiny garden for no other purpose, I’m certain, than to while away their days in the sunshine and astounding beauty.
A dozen curragh, the open style canvas and tar-covered fishing boats of years gone by, and one Galway hooker, 10 meters long with a single stout mast, floated nearby in the little harbour of Kingstown Peninsula. It’s here the lower Sky Road route leaves the water’s edge, and climbs steeply before twisting its way back to Clifden.
As I watched a solitary car cautiously wind toward me, its nervous driver creeping slowly downhill with brake pedal to the floor, it became decision time. Retrace my shore route, or take the high road back, in every sense of the word? Tempted by the most beautiful views in Ireland, no runner could resist the challenge of summiting the Sky Road. The decision was made, and immediately I was filled with emotions of humility and confidence.
The confidence is that which all runners ultimately come to share. It’s earned by running the Steve Bauer Trail, laps at E. L. Crossley, or the quiet streets and back roads of Pelham each week, striving to increase our distance and pace, improving our abilities for personal goals no one else knows or cares about. Or from entering a race or two to confirm we’re getting stronger, or just to push ourselves.
Eventually, there’s no fear a run will be uncompleted, no worry an injury won’t recover, and no concern over headwinds, hills and cold. We begin every run flush with confidence, knowing our bodies and minds will deliver what we ask of them.
The humility comes from realizing how fortunate we are simply to be able to run. Whether through good health and genes provided by the luck of the draw, or discipline and determination by those who will never be “naturals,” we lace up every day, thinking, “What’s the worst that can happen,” and, “I've got this.”
It’s akin to the irrepressible confidence of youth. To maintain such an outlook into our 40s, 50s, 60s, and beyond is a precious gift running provides to women and men everywhere.
A steady pace carried me to the top without walking, and the run back into Clifden was gorgeous. Two tall church steeples, one Roman Catholic, one Church of Ireland, duel for prominence in front of the mountainous Twelve Bens. The evening’s low light casts a warm glow on the white, pink and cream coloured shops and homes of the old downtown as I enter, breathlessly.
My chronograph reads 1:47:20. Sky Road or not, a run is a run. ◆
