This is part of a diary I’m keeping on this blog about long-distance running, which I’m calling The Run Diary. All pieces can be read here.

Silence in its most meaningful sense is not an absence of sound or distraction, but almost an immunity from it. People, sounds, objects, and even memories, are often harbingers of anxiety and temptation.

The ability to have such things in front of you, be aware of the mistakes they invite, yet somehow simply acknowledge them and continue moving forward without confrontation, is true silence. That silence is an inner strength that allows one to find an authentic peace and persistence.

When Steve Collins fought Chris Eubank, his eyes were closed and head tilted toward the canvas of the ring throughout the pageantry that typically commences a championship fight. He remained seated, the hood of his robe cloaked over his head, somewhat in the fashion of a Franciscan at vespers, while he and his opponent were introduced.

Eubank, as expected, showboated for the crowd, proudly and prominently displaying his adonis-like physique and flashing his cocksure stare all around the arena, gestures made to seem even more brazen by the fact that the crowd was clearly behind Collins. “Steve-O! Steve-O!” they chanted.

Collins remained seated, eyes closed, and head cast downward, not bothering to even acknowledge the cries of support let alone drink in those shouts of his name and strut for the crowd. The fight commentator pondered whether or not it was safe to be seated for that long before a fight.

Even as the chants of Steve-O continued, Collins is robotically proficient, remaining the more active fighter but refusing to remain in front of Eubank long enough for the Brit to counter meaningfully. Where the chants of the crowd and early successes of nailing Eubank, a previously undefeated and thought to be untouchable fighter, could easily invite recknlessness, Collins remains as attentive and steadfast in purpose as St. Antony in the desert.

Collins wins by fighting his fight. He wins by finding silence in all the distraction and temptation, remaining almost meditative in the midst of the violence in the ring. I would like to think that he was indeed deep in meditation, reminding himself of the plan that he brought to the ring and repeating it like a mantra. How brilliant it seemed to me that one could be so committed and immune from temptation. How genius that by making no rash moves, Collins executed a performance that was the stuff of legends.

***

I hadn’t run in Hamilton in over a year and wasn’t terribly excited to be back. I was there more out of the necessesity of getting my legs used to the notorious hills of the Around the Bay course. The group that gathered in the parking lot of LaSalle Park was large, an amalgam of Toronto and Hamilton runners.

I hadn’t seen the hills since the previous year and standing in that parking lot before we took off, they were really just memories. I remembered for a moment the last hill on North Shore Boulevard that leads on to Plains Road and just how overheated I was and how the gels I had taken for fuel were not settling right when I climbed that hill during the race in March of 2014. I remembered my legs feeling shackled during a training run the previous year and getting progressively slower the more I ran.

In the moments before we took off, I found myself silent, knowing that I was surrounded by other runners and would encounter many more along the route, all preparing themselves for the truly unique race that was Around the Bay, and that I might be tempted to keep up when I couldn’t. I knew that the hills were going to find themselves in front of me and that I could find myself daunted or tempted to attack them aggressively.

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