Lessons on the Water

Recently, while gathered with some friends, the “what would we do if money was no object” hypothetical was proposed while I worked feverishly to keep the small fire in our chiminea from erupting into a five alarm blaze. I casually responded, “I don’t know, probably what I am doing already.” The guffaw from my wife was almost instantaneous, “You’d be running or fly fishing, and I would see you for about half an hour a day.”

Knee-deep in Irondequoit Creek

We all laughed, but she was right. These activities are my passions, and if I had my druthers I’d spend even more time than I do (which is considerable) engaged in each. Both of these activities are often the subject of metaphors about life, and each has taught me invaluable lessons that have helped me grow as a person, professional, father, and husband. But they have also taught me innumerable lessons about each other. Like the Russian nesting dolls my mother loves to display on her knick-knack shelf, these pursuits have become layered on top of each other. Each lesson adding to the collective strength of the whole.

Perhaps more so than any other relationship, my time on the water fly fishing has taught meg and reminded me of several lessons essential to running. I am an amateur fly fisherman on my good days. If I spend more time mending a natural drift than I do untangling line or pulling flies from overhanging branches, I consider it a success. For even the most accomplished fly fishermen, you will spend more time casting and coming up empty than you will imitating Brad Pitt in A River Runs Through It. While the goal is certainly to feel the sharp tug of a rising trout, that cannot be the only goal, or your time on the water will be an exercise in frustration. So it is with running.

Our principle goal will always be to run faster, or run farther, or both.  We will constantly cast our line into the riffles with the expectation of a record strike, but we will frequently come up short. Every run will not be a personal best. Every run will not be filled with the excitement of “landing a whopper.” So, as with fly fishing, we must make the pursuit the goal. We must learn to take joy in the action, rather than the consequence. We need to find satisfaction in the beauty of a run through an Aspen stand, or find appreciation in the exertion of maximum effort in an interval session. The quest becomes the reward.

As all good fishermen will tell you, it is in these moments, when we are lost in appreciation of the fading sunlight, or immersed in the slow movement of a perfect drift, that the “big strike” most often occurs. When all our attention is on the end result, whether it be the feeding rainbow lurking just below the surface or the 5k PR that seems just out of reach, we lose sight of what we are doing in the moment to create the opportunity for success. Fly fishing reminds me to make the current action as near to perfect as possible, and the results will come. When your focus shifts from the task at hand, the once graceful fly slaps to the water sending every trout in a half-mile radius scattering.

In running, we need to focus on what we are doing today, at this moment, during this run. Often in talking with runners, the first thing they want to discuss is how they can achieve a personal best in three months. My fist question is always, “What did you do today?” Did you run today’s run as best you could? Did you focus on stretching and strengthening? Did you consider your diet and hydration? Success in three months does not happen by just slapping a fly out on the water. It happens when we focus on making each action of our endeavor as perfect as possible.

Whether it is waist-deep in a trout stream or at the finishing tape of a road race, success is a relative and amorphous prize. It is found in the knowledge that you pursued beauty and excellence with ferocious precision, and that whether or not  you felt a tug at the end of your line, you were out there. That is often prize enough.