When I was in high school, I was on the cross country team. I wasn’t a particularly fast runner: I was small and young for my grade, and I wasn’t particularly committed to training. The best runners ran year-round, training summer and fall for cross country and winter and spring for track. I only ran cross country, and only trained in the summer and fall. I liked the offseason: a chance to heal my legs and focus on other activities. Even in-season, I ran less than others. The state high school athletic association did not allow practices on Sundays, but many of my teammates ran on their own. I preferred having a day of rest.
I never really enjoyed running in high school. I found it occasionally satisfying, and I enjoyed the social aspect of being on a team, but I had an unhappy relationship with the training. I’m a very competitive person, and it frustrated me to not be very fast. I understood that many of my teammates trained harder and more consistently than I did, and that if I wanted to be faster, I would need to change my habits. I didn’t want to commit to that, and some days I would wonder why I tried at all if I didn’t want to be fully invested.
At the 6-day-a-week level, I felt I was already spending more time and energy on running than I wanted to. In the latter part of the season, I would usually run 40-45 miles a week. At this mileage, everything hurt. And not just muscles. Structural stuff. I battled shin splints, knee pain, ankle pain, and foot pain. The best runners, whose weekly mileage often approached 60, had it worse. There was always a crowd in the trainer’s room after practice while my teammates waited in line to stand thigh deep in the ice bath.
Some research has suggested that distance running has a higher injury rate than football. In football, at least the injuries are accidental. In competitive distance running, they are part of the gamble of getting faster. It’s not a sport of dexterity, technique, or strategy. The skill is endurance, the act of pushing the body right up to the breaking point, but not across it. Stopping or slowing because of pain that could have been safely ignored means missing out on peak performance. In a sport of mental toughness, such undertraining is viewed with disdain. But overtraining is also dangerous. Every year I had teammates who put mind too far over matter and ended the season walking in a boot.
At 40 miles a week, pain and exhaustion were a daily reality. I rarely looked forward to practice, and I was obstinate and difficult to coach. I often resented the prescribed workouts: usually silently, but occasionally vocally. I was giving so much time and energy to running, but even the modest boundaries I had set were preventing me from being competitively successful or reaching my potential. Running was an obligation, not a source of fulfillment. I often considered quitting, but I felt I couldn’t. Being on the team was a source of friends and a core part of my identity. What would I do if I quit?
The Mormon church was founded in 1830 by Joseph Smith, a religious seeker whose bold claims about God – and existing churches – attracted followers but scandalized his neighbors. Smith claimed God descended from heaven and told him to found a new church, because the existing ones were corrupt and abominable. He then claimed God sent angels to grant Mormon leaders the exclusive authority to perform divine, saving ordinances. While other religions might teach some truths, they were incomplete or corrupted by the philosophies of men. Only Mormonism contained the “fulness of the Gospel.”
A faith that believes it is “the only true and living church upon the face of the whole earth” is difficult to leave gracefully. Faithful members may feel, and are taught, that they have an obligation to prevent those leaving from turning their backs on the only path to salvation. To those leaving, this can compound the difficulty. Mormonism is a high demand religion: a culture, a lifestyle, a huge investment of time and energy, and a heritage. It can be a source of friends and a cornerstone of an identity. Navigating changes in all these spheres is difficult enough on its own. Rescue attempts by friends and family only make the situation worse.
In October 2016, Apostle M. Russell Ballard said: “If any one of you is faltering in your faith, I ask you the same question that Peter asked [Jesus]: ‘To whom shall [I] go?’ If you choose to become inactive or to leave the restored Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, where will you go? What will you do?”
In high school, I never enjoyed being Mormon. Socially, it was occasionally enjoyable, but the commitment was too great and the benefits too few. I dreaded going to church, but dutifully gave Mormonism 4-5 hours every Sunday. Even so, I could not meet community expectations. I skipped scripture study at 6:30 every school morning. I missed a fair amount of the Wednesday evening meetings. And looming on the horizon was the expectation that upon graduation I give two years of my life to missionary work, something I found repulsive. Even modest boundaries prevented me from measuring up to the ideal. Being Mormon was an obligation, not a source of fulfillment. I wanted to quit but felt trapped. Mormonism was the foundation of my family, and a core part of my identity. To whom shall I go, indeed.
My senior year of high school, I finally gathered the courage to quit the cross country team. I drove to practice one summer morning, told the coach I didn’t want to commit to another season of training, thanked him for his time, and drove away. A couple weeks later, I joined the tennis team. I didn’t know most of the people on it well, but I enjoyed the sport more. While I didn’t see cross country teammates as often, I maintained good friendships. I'd still sit by them in class and during lunch, and see them outside of school. It wasn’t the end of the world. My identity turned out to be plenty malleable, and I had no regrets about quitting.
After two years away from running, I decided to pick it up again, but with some changes to my approach. I realized that I resent external pressure and respond negatively to this sort of motivation. Running with a group creates a social dynamic I don’t appreciate. Slower runners feel pressure to speed up, guilted into keeping pace. Faster runners are pressured to train less hard. Either way, training decisions are influenced by social pressure. For me, external expectations turn running into an obligation. I prefer running by myself.
I’d never liked having a coach set my training schedule. More unwelcome external pressure. Now I set my own schedule. I don’t run much in the cold months. Starting in the spring, I try to run 3 times a week. Beginning at 10 miles a week, I gradually work up to 20-25 to prepare for a half-marathon in the fall. I rarely have pain in my joints and feet. When I feel signs of an injury developing, I take a couple days off until I feel better. I am accountable only to myself and the clock.
It turns out I really like running. It clears my head, improves my sleep, defuses frustration, and releases endorphins. But mostly it’s an act of defiance: against the weakness of the body, the forces of nature, the indifference of the universe, the slow march of entropy. Running is difficult and intrinsically pointless. No matter how fast I run today, I will eventually grow old, slow, and frail. I can’t control this reality, but I can control my attitude. When I choose to run, it’s for one reason only: I’ve decided that it matters to me, and I’m going to do something about it. The ultimate futility is what makes the act beautiful. Entropy be damned.
The world is full of suffering, most of it senseless and random. The human experience is confusing and unfair. What is the point, and where is the meaning? How can one find the strength to keep striving for a better life? Some people find that Mormonism answers these questions for them. I don’t begrudge them this. Some runners are motivated by training with friends. That’s fine too. There are many trails to run, and everyone should take the paths that work best for them. But I object to the notion that Mormonism is the only true religion, with a monopoly on proper spiritual expression and experiences.
I claim the privilege of living according to the dictates of my own conscience, and allow all people the same privilege. I respect whatever paths allow for maximum fulfillment without infringing upon others. And I request this respect in kind.
I refuse to allow the human search for meaning and purpose to become an obligation for me, debased by external pressure and expectations. If purpose is God-given, it isn’t much of a choice. Without choice, how can life be meaningful? Life’s lack of intrinsic purpose is a void that is necessary for defining any true meaning. Filling this void is a difficult process. I can’t say I’ve had much success, or that I expect to in the future. The world is simply too absurd. But I do know that I need a personal journey, a search made beautiful through defiance. Futility be damned.
"Saltwater Gospel," Eli Young Band
