On Saturday I ran the annual Carlisle Old Home Day 5-mile race. Back in 1991, this same event was the first road race I ever ran; I’ve done several others in recent years, but this one is always my favorite.
I have such mixed feelings about participating in races. And here I should point out that the copy editor in me wants to change the three-word phrase “participating in races” to the singular and simple “racing,” but that’s just my point: “racing” seems like a hyperbolic word for what I do. Every race I enter these days, I go into with the expectation that I’ll likely finish last. I never actually do finish absolute last – usually I fall in the bottom ten percent of finishers, regardless of the size of the field – but I’m always braced for the possibility.
Lots of people have tried to boost me out of this rather defeatist mindset, reminding me that it’s about competing and finishing rather than winning. And when I say “lots of people,” I of course mean my mother. Fortunately, no matter how often she tells me it’s wonderful that I race at all and I need not worry where I finish, there’s always my 11-year-old son to represent the counterpoint to that argument. “I’m just afraid I’ll finish last,” I admitted to him once on the way to a race. “Oh, Mom, I’m pretty sure you will!” he responded cheerily.
It’s easy to say that since I’m obviously not a competitive racer, it shouldn’t matter to me where in the field I finish, but there’s something that causes me an almost primal anxiety about being last. Even though road races take place in safe, well-populated, festive venues, toward the end of the run I often develop this irrational concern that I’ll be left behind. I know it’s not a literal worry: being alone on the course would not in any way be a problem any of the places I’ve ever raced (which include Concord, Massachusetts; Valley Forge, Pennsylvania; and Bath, Maine). But toward the end of a race I seem to revert to a grade schooler on a field trip, believing I’ll come out of the bathroom at the Museum of Science to discover my class’s bus has already departed from the parking lot. As my oxygen level thins slightly and my brain capacity diminishes a little, I become afraid in a childlike way of being left by myself.
In Saturday’s Old Home Day run, fears of being left behind were particularly ridiculous since at no point in the race was I farther than three miles from my own house. But more importantly, I know it sounds self-pitying to say I worry so much about coming in last. I know how lucky I am to have the physical ability to run five miles; surely there are countless women my age suffering from any number of disabilities who might read this and say “If I could participate in a road race, I’d never think about complaining about my finish time.”
On a rational level I agree with them, but there’s more to it than that: sometimes I feel compelled to ask myself why I bother to sign up for races when I’m sure to be one of the last people to cross the finish line. (At the race I’ve run twice in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, it’s a field of 1,000, so being in the bottom 10 percent still means nearly 100 people are running behind me, but my focus is always on the 900 ahead of me.) Race results are usually posted by name and hometown; when I take part in races in other states, I often picture people reading the results and saying “I can’t believe this woman traveled all the way from Massachusetts just to finish last in our race.”
But, indeed, there are other ways to look at finishing last than, well, finishing last. My friend Nancy Cowan reminded me of something we both learned when our children were second-graders studying the Iditarod, Alaska’s legendary sled dog race. “You’re not the last-place finisher; you’re the Red Lantern Award winner!” she said to me one year. And maybe the Iditarod organizers have the right idea. As written on the official Iditarod website, “Awarding a red lantern for the last place finisher in a sled dog race has become an Alaskan tradition. It started as a joke and has become a symbol of stick-to-itiveness in the mushing world.” In that sense, I’m the sweep: bringing up the end to confirm that the race both began and ended safely for all of us who stuck to it.
So I won’t give up on road races just yet. I’ll keep working for that Red Lantern Prize. Someone gets to be first; someone has to be last (or very nearly last. Last among those who actually ran the whole course.). When you see me cross the finish line, you know that another year’s road race has been successfully run. Time to start looking ahead to next year. Who knows, maybe a slower runner will have moved to town by then.
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Did your teacher tell you about the suffering dogs are forced to endure in the Iditarod? For them, the race is a bottomless pit of suffering. Six dogs died in the 2009 Iditarod, including two dogs on Dr. Lou Packer's team who froze to death in the brutally cold winds. What happens to the dogs during the race includes death, paralysis, frostbite (where it hurts the most!), bleeding ulcers, bloody diarrhea, lung damage, pneumonia, ruptured discs, viral diseases, broken bones, torn muscles and tendons and sprains. At least 142 dogs have died in the the Iditarod.
ReplyDeleteDuring training runs, Iditarod dogs have been killed by moose, snowmachines, and various motor vehicles, including a semi tractor and an ATV. They have died from drowning, heart attacks and being strangled in harnesses. Dogs have also been injured while training. They have been gashed, quilled by porcupines, bitten in dog fights, and had broken bones, and torn muscles and tendons. Most dog deaths and injuries during training aren't even reported.
Iditarod dog kennels are puppy mills. Mushers breed large numbers of dogs and routinely kill unwanted ones, including puppies. Many dogs who are permanently disabled in the Iditarod, or who are unwanted for any reason, including those who have outlived their usefulness, are killed with a shot to the head, dragged, drowned or clubbed to death. "Dogs are clubbed with baseball bats and if they don't pull are dragged to death in harnesses......" wrote former Iditarod dog handler Mike Cranford in an article for Alaska's Bush Blade Newspaper.
Dog beatings and whippings are common. During the 2007 Iditarod, eyewitnesses reported that musher Ramy Brooks kicked, punched and beat his dogs with a ski pole and a chain. Jim Welch says in his book Speed Mushing Manual, "Nagging a dog team is cruel and ineffective...A training device such as a whip is not cruel at all but is effective." "It is a common training device in use among dog mushers..."
Jon Saraceno wrote in his March 3, 2000 column in USA Today, "He [Colonel Tom Classen] confirmed dog beatings and far worse. Like starving dogs to maintain their most advantageous racing weight. Skinning them to make mittens.. Or dragging them to their death."
During the race, veterinarians do not give the dogs physical exams at every checkpoint. Mushers speed through many checkpoints, so the dogs get the briefest visual checks, if that. Instead of pulling sick dogs from the race, veterinarians frequently give them massive doses of antibiotics to keep them running. The Iditarod's chief veterinarian, Stu Nelson, is an employee of the Iditarod Trail Committee. They are the ones who sign his paycheck. So, do you expect that he's going to say anything negative about the Iditarod?
The Iditarod, with all the evils associated with it, has become a synonym for exploitation. The race imposes torture no dog should be forced to endure.
Margery Glickman
Director
Sled Dog Action Coalition, http://www.helpsleddogs.org