by Seijen Takamura
I still remember the day I became a runner.
It was a perfect September afternoon in 1999 and my first ever cross-country race at in North Mankato. As one might expect, the crowd of spectators was thin, maybe two-dozen parents, gathered confusedly around the start line. The gun went off and in an instant 15 scrawny adolescents were running as fast as we could around the edges of the wide grass field next to the middle school. I remember the leaders immediately opening up a gap on my teammate Seth and me, but slowly we stalked them, reeling them in for the last ½ mile until we passed them in the final stretch. I won that first race in 1999, and after that, I couldn’t get enough.
Since that day 16 years ago, I’ve run thousands of miles, hundreds of races, and completed four marathons with one more coming up. I’ve jogged on sidewalks, zig-zagged through snow-covered deer trails in the North Woods, climbed stone-covered paths in the Cascades, glided barefoot over damp golf-course fairways on cool summer nights, and even streaked a small-town bowling alley… but that’s a different story.
I’ve run through the Florida Everglades at 2am (yes, it’s still hot as hell at 2am), around the Track of Champions in Kenya’s highlands, alongside acres-upon-acres of sunflower fields in Provence, besides The River Thames in London with Tower Bridge peeking over my shoulder, and through 18 inches of snow for six miles in Lanesboro, Minnesota.
I never run on treadmills.
Why? There are no adventures to be had on the treadmill. And running to me, is a gateway to adventures.
The dictionary calls an adventure “an unusual and exciting, typically hazardous, experience or activity.” I call an adventure a hunch that something very valuable is on the other side of something very hard. Adventures explore the edges of personal boundaries, ultimately unleashing something that previously seemed impossible. Adventures feel uncomfortable because adventures are inherently uncertain.
And that’s why I love Alchemy: Because it is all of the above.
Because it helps prepare me for the longer, bigger adventures to come. Because it pushes me to the edges of what I can do. Because I’m not ever 100% sure that I will complete an A20 (but I always do). Because on the other side of those 20 minutes, I’m always immensely proud of myself and my fellow Alchemists. Alchemy pushes the boundaries of my personal redline in fitness and in life, helping me ascend little by little in everything that I do.
I don’t run as fast as I used to, nor as far as I used to, and I’ve definitely taken some sabbaticals from this cold, hard sport. But if I measure my “runnerness” by my readiness for adventure, I am more of a runner today than I have ever been. And I have Alchemy to thank for a lot of that.
