Running with the Pack: Thoughts from the Road on Meaning and Mortality

Running. Aging. Meaning of Life. Dogs. All is woven together in Running with the Pack. The author decides to run a marathon a few years shy of his 50th birthday. He has enjoyed running for most of his life, but his body is more equipped for sprinting than running. Injuries have plagued him. In training for the marathon, he was progressing well so he pushed himself harder. This led to an injury. He kept coming back too strong after trying to heal, thus leading to further problems. (And ironically, he started running because he was afraid he had gout, but he likely had a stress fracture instead.) Despite all this and a lack of training in the weeks leading up to the marathon he decided to do it anyway.

A lot of his running had been done with dogs. These companions experience a basic joy of running and give him reason to continue. 

He sees running as something that has meaning unto itself rather than something that provides alternate benefit. Even from a biological level, running helps clear out thoughts and allows the mind to solve some of the hard problems that were not solvable when "it was the boss". Running also helps our general energy expenditure to catch up with what the body is expecting.

As we age our physical ability declines. This is a genetic trade off that mammals have made. Reptiles and amphibians tend to be fairly equal in their abilities until they die. The decline is inevitable in life. We will not be able to run at age 50 like we did at 20. The regression will continue as we get older.

The book has many nice insights into running and aging. It is great to think of the meaning in what we are doing rather than just expect everything as a means to an end. Even something like happiness is not necessarily an "end". In work it is good to find something that we enjoy doing and then find somebody to pay us for it. Anything can be professionalized. It is up to us to find our meaning.