Mind, Body and Spirit
More than just a running high. A spiritual awakening that only running can bring.
Is running a spiritual experience?
Business took Bill Steinburg to Italy for eight days last March when he was working as the communications manager of the Archdiocese of Toronto. Steinburg, 45, is a 2:49 marathoner who has run Boston four times. He handles public relations for the church, covering a jurisdiction that includes 250 churches, 4,000 employees, 800 priests and two million Catholics. Working alongside Toronto Archbishop Cardinal Thomas Collins in Rome, as the leadership gathered to elect a new Pope, Steinburg was busy. The atmosphere, watched closely by the world’s one billion Catholics and curiously by seemingly everyone else, was, to say the least, charged. Every morning, Steinburg woke up at 6 a.m. to run.
“Sometimes, when I run, the feeling is not even a thought, but an emotion that can best be conveyed when you give someone a hug,” says Steinburg, who became a serious runner around his 40th birthday, as his marriage began breaking down. “It’s like a feeling expressed without thoughts or words, but that’s conveying a message. In a way, it feels like you’re living a prayer. Sometimes I pray when I run. Sometimes I’m just trying to impose a work-life balance and sometimes I just want to blow off steam, but I run for many different reasons – and sometimes it feels like transference of love being shared.”
Steinburg says running, like his faith, work together to give him character. It provides structure and discipline, and, like prayer, allows him time alone to speak with God. Whether or not a runner is religious, a certain amount of faith is required every time we buy a new pair of sneakers or enter a race. Who knows what will happen between the starting gun and the finish line? Proper training can prepare you, but not protect you, from the uncertainties of an event. It’s what makes it so fun. Many runners, like Steinburg express an overt connection between running and their beliefs. And everyone from First Nations athletes to Orthodox Jews are becoming more vocal about the ties between their physical and spiritual health. It doesn’t matter exactly what you believe. The point is: that belief can be accentuated on a run.
Religious-themed running clubs have become a new global trend – even as worldwide church membership
declines – and many of the world’s best athletes tout their success as a tribute to God. Of course, the connection between the state of our soul and our finishing times may sound tenuous, but even an atheist living the lifestyle of a monk may call for some divine intervention in the sleepless night before a race (“Lord, if you’re out there, please let last night’s spaghetti digest”).
FAITH HELPS
Gordon Bloom, a professor of sport psychology at McGill University and director of their Sport Psychology Research Lab, has coached Olympic athletes and his three children. There’s a natural link, he says, between belief in a higher power and athletes attempting to reach their goals. But that link doesn’t have to be religious, as long as it provides inner peace. While a religious runner might not necessarily be faster than an atheist, some argue that a spirit at rest will have more energy to expend come race time.
“You can have all the skill in the world, but if you don’t have the right mental mindset – the motivation, discipline and ambition – that talent will be wasted,” says Bloom, who points to Tiger Woods as an example of what happens when a lack of virtuousness spills over into an athlete’s life. “Belief on its own won’t give you a better chance of winning,” he says, “What it can do is help you keep your life in order. If belief can provide tranquility, maybe there’s an advantage there.” That advantage seems to be regularly on display in nba and nfl post-game interviews and at podiums around the world after races. Top U.S. Olympic marathoners Ryan Hall and Meb Kef lezighi are both devout Christians. Hall has often claimed God as his coach. Wesley Korir was born in Kenya and divides his time between Kenya, Louisville, Ky., and St. Clements, Ont., where his wife, distance runner Tarah McKay-Korir was born. He credits his faith in God with eliminating the pressure of race day. Last year, he won the Boston Marathon. Korir then used his winnings to campaign for, and win, a seat in Kenya’s Parliament. But life in politics hasn’t slowed him down. At this year’s race in Boston, Korir took fifth.
Of course, there are many other successful runners who aren’t quoting scripture on their homepage. Reid Coolsaet, one of Canada’s best hopes of breaking Jerome Drayton’s 1975 national marathon record, says his success comes from training, not the lord. But faith athletes like 36-year-old Krista DuChene are becoming a bigger part of the running scene. DuChene, a mother of three from a farm in Brantford, Ont., ran 2:32:06 last year
There’s a natural link between belief in a higher power and athletes attempting to reach their goals.
in Rotterdam, surpassing the iaaf qualifying standard for the London Games. However, as most running fans know, she didn’t meet the Canadian Olympic qualifying time. It was a bitter, contested pill to swallow, but DuChene says she learned early on that God could give her the strength to take heartbreak in stride.
“At one point, when my dad was on his death bed, he asked me if I was angry at God. I broke down and cried, but said, ‘No, I’m not.’ I was devastated, but he told me he was OK, and I had peace,” says DuChene, who has remarkably gotten increasingly faster with the birth of each of her three kids. “I understand that life’s not about me, but about how God can use me. I appealed the Canadian Olympic Committee’s ruling, but when we lost, I knew my life wasn’t over.”