Questions on boats.

Dads, sons, running, fishing, and sobriety in midlife.

“What is it about fishing?” my father in-law once asked. “Why do men do this?”

I’d taken him to my favorite mountain lake in Northwest Montana. We were bobbing in ten feet of clear water in the twelve-foot aluminum called Ivory — so-named by my stepdad because, “It’s hollow and it floats.”

The perch were biting, and so did the question. Why did I like fishing?

An honest answer at that time would have been that I did it mostly so I could drink without boundaries on a Sunday morning. But I didn’t confess. Instead, we danced around the notion and agreed that men like fishing because it quiets our minds.

I guess both things were true. I fished, and I drank, for refuge from a noisy brain.

On a recent fishing outing, my stepdad (of Ivory-naming fame) asked how my running was going. It took me back to that morning years ago in Northwest Montana. Just as it was unthinkable then to reveal a personal vice — however obvious it probably was to others — talking earnestly about running can be difficult.

But, as the man who raised me and I both get on in years, I’ve come to cherish our slow conversations over still water. Fifty and sober, I’m learning to let my guard down. So, this time when he asked, I didn’t evade with banalities. I let him in a little.

“You know, Dave,” I paused and let the bait sink, “Running’s incredibly important to me. It’s taught me so much about myself.”

A Realization

Back home, fresh walleye in hand, I rushed to my notebook and jotted an idea: “What Running Has Taught Me About Myself.” With Running Lightly, I try to let inspiration to come from anywhere, and the chat with my stepdad seemed like the beginnings of a relatable piece.

I started with a few obvious points to get the pen moving:

• I can do hard things

• I’m capable of more than I think

• Consistency is king

What else? I hit a wall and asked Lisa for help, reading her my short list.

“To be honest,” she said with a compassionate hesitancy, “I don’t think you were really open to what running had to teach you until …”

Until I quit drinking?

“Yes. I’m sorry to say that.”

No, it’s true. You’re a hundred-percent right.

“I think running for you initially was a way to connect with your dad. It was more …”

Outward?

“Yes. Your motivations were more external. If you think about the environment you experienced with your dad, it was almost inevitable you’d become a runner and connect running and drinking. It’s only in the last few years you’ve actually started to think about your own why.”

Stronger at the Broken Places

She was right. The two had always been inseparable in my mind — running was the work and beer was the reward. Stimulus/response, action/outcome. By late 2020, though, these threads of my fabric had become knotted. I was chronically dehydrated and stuck in a painful cycle of inflammation and injury (among other painful cycles).

Not only was “the reward” keeping me from knowing myself, it was slowly killing me. The time had come to choose — running or drinking.

I’ve been alcohol-free almost four years now. My health, work, and relationships have never been better. With personal records in the mile and half-marathon this year, and all signs pointing to a breakthrough 26.2 on the horizon, my running has leveled up. I’m writing this on the cusp of an eighty-mile week (my most ever), and memories of the days when hangovers and injuries made it rare to hit forty are fading.

Of course, it’s not really about the miles, but the love … Namely of myself.

“The world breaks everyone, and afterward, some are strong at the broken places.”
- Ernest Hemingway

I couldn’t have known it in 2020, but choosing running over alcohol was deciding to see the broken places, accept them, and patiently begin repairs. The mends of a fractured heart can be beautiful. And, in restoring the heart, the soul has a clearer path to shine through.

Turns out, running was in my soul all along.

Healing Forward and Backward

Whether we realize it or not, each of us falls under the influence of inherited beliefs and behaviors, sometimes witnessed, sometimes invisible. This means, of course, that we also have the power to create such generational ripples.

“What we are seeking to do in our lives, is to redeem our ancestors, for the work we do not accomplish in our generation will become the chief burden of our children.”
- James Hollis, Creating a Life

Early in my running journey, I often thought about whether it pleased my father that I was following in his footsteps. I also wondered if I might inspire my own children to lace up someday. But I never paid mind to the ghosts passing me beer cans, or how I might be passing them forward to my kids, to my grandkids.

Our son went alcohol-free a few months after I did. I was surprised, and proud. Until then, I hadn’t really considered the patriarchal depth of drinking in the Hahn family. He had his own reasons for quitting, of course. But perhaps when I chose to love myself, he felt some pressure released on the holding tank of unspoken expectations.

“It is useful to think that the work we do on ourselves in this life … might just as well ripple backward in time.”
- James Hollis, Creating a Life

Near the end of a twenty-mile run in the autumn sun last week, I felt my dad’s presence. This happens a lot. Not every run, but sometimes on long, strenuous, oxygen-deprived efforts, and always in the sunshine. My mind slips into power-save mode, my soul lifts, and there he is, smiling and washing me in warmth.

I like to believe, if only because it gives some comfort eleven years after his passing, that the old man is as thrilled with my sobriety as he is my running. “You really quit,” I imagine him saying. “Fabulous. I wish I could have done that. I’m proud of you.”

His heart is mended. Some pain relieved.

The Finish Start Line

Let’s bring this meandering venture back to angling, where we started, as a conventionally-arced story should do. Questions are vastly more interesting than answers, so I’ll leave you with one:

Why do you fish?

Not literally, of course, unless you want to take it in that direction. But are there things you do out of habit, without wondering where they came from or why you keep doing them? Are there times when you do a spin move around the truth just to keep moving down the field?

The world’s not going to stop turning if we act without intention or allow ourselves a small dishonesty. But, speaking from the other side of a life constructed on shaky self-awareness and careless self-deception, please allow me to advocate for an alternative: curious self-exploration.

For ourselves, and possibly in both directions of our ancestral line, everything gets better when we spend time with “why.”

“All good things must begin.”
- Octavia Butler

Run lightly,
-mike

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