“Ain’t No Tellin’ What A Young Black Man Can Do!”

Many years ago I was working at Pepperdine University, when the campus was on Vermont avenue down in the inner city. And at lunch times, I’d run on the track. My distance was five miles, but it took me time to work up to it. Not because of the physical stress, but because, at about the three mile point, I hit a special level of fatigue, and the voices started in my head:

You’re going to die!

You’re hurting yourself!

You can’t do this!

Stop now, you’ve done enough!

And I would stop. But almost as soon as I did, when my body cooled down, I knew something: I could have gone further. I had conned myself. I had gas left in the tank. But the part of me that didn’t see me as a “runner” used my fear to stop me from changing.

And I made a decision. If my heart, or a vessel in my brain, was so weak I was going to die if I kept running, then I’d probably die later that day anyway. And in that case, I would prefer to die doing what I wanted, being who I am.

And the next time I ran, those same voices cropped up at the three mile level…and I kept going. And it got worse. And then…at about 3.5 miles, the pain and the voices went away. I was FLYING. My body, mind, and emotions were in harmony with each other. It felt wonderful.

I hadn’t noticed something. An older black man had stopped walking down the street, and had his face pressed to the fence, watching me as I…