BUGS, MARATHONS, AND NEIL BEARSE…
One of my brightest students in 37 years of teaching at Queen’s, Neil Bearse never ceases to amaze me with his ability to do new things, and do them well. As a Knights of Columbus basketball coach, a computer whiz (no geek, he!), and a very able student, he excelled in the courses he took in PHED with me. Now thinking about his future, he has taken up freelance writing, and running marathons. He writes well, as several recent columns in the Whig-Standard attest. He also runs pretty well, except when he gets bugs in his mouth (Sure! You’ve had that Ontario springtime experience), or hits an especially hot day to attempt 26.2 miles. Hell, the Four Preps couldn’t even run that far on their way to Santa Catalina back in the late 1950s.
So here is a one of Neil’s recent columns, a real winner, along with a photo of him working like hell to cross a marathon finish line. What courage!!
Bug in Mouth Disease
Following the epic battle of Marathon, the Greek hero Pheidippides ran from the plains of Marathon to Athens to announce the victory of the Athenians over the Persians. Regardless of your measurement convention, the man covered twenty six miles or forty two kilometers, running every step. To end the famous tale, Pheidippides died upon arrival.
Despite the legend transpiring nearly 2500 years ago, the distance has lived on, and is still routinely traversed on foot. Although the act of running has now, itself, become the battle, one aspect of the bittersweet event still rings true with runners everywhere.
Despite endless hours of training, seemingly space age advances in technology and scientific research, runners routinely experience near death experiences out on the roads. If such a tragedy were to transpire, cause of death would not be reported as vehicular or accidental, not suicide, not even homicide. The most prevalent cause of death would be reported as an incurable case of bug-in-mouth disease; the rarely reported death by insect: insecticide.
The next section should be read with caution, as many runners will cringe and cower from the graphic descriptions about to be presented. Although not yet described in medical literature, the signs and symptoms of bug in mouth disease are universally understood. The initial stages begin with impairment of vision. The view ahead, of otherwise sunny space, becomes murky and forboding; like a dirty thumbprint on a contact lens.
As the cloud is approached, you notice others emerging from the smog, waving yet unseen objects away from their face. When the light hits thesmog in just the right way, the definition among its objects comes into focus; a cloud of insects swarming like a plague of locusts, rising like a geyser into the heavens.
Although the objects are now defined, there is little escape, for it is already too late. Because of an innate sense of the perfect annoyance coordinates, the insects have staked a claim to your destined square of sidewalk, and there is nothing you can do about it. You can swerve, sway, or duck, but there is no avoiding; you are now at the mercy of momentum.
Like the first raindrop splashing on a windshield, the first insect splattering on your forehead primes you for the imminent assault. The body’s response is a clear case of evolutionary adaptation, as every species has one for their most feared environmental afflictions. Like a camel battening down the hatches during a sandstorm, the human runner purses the lips and squints the eyes in the face of a bugstorm.
Depending on the severity of the attack, a scientific property known as swarm-depth, the body can switch into a fight or flight state of survival: holding the breath, running at breakneck speeds and making erratic changes in direction; anything in order to escape the cloud.
For some, the next stage can signal the beginning of the end. Due to physiological constraints and safety precautions, at some point a breath must be taken and the eyes must open. The attack is immediate. Although all bare skin is susceptible to their kamikaze strategies, the eyes, ears, and mouth are of apparent strategic importance, as they are subject to the most repetitive damage.
With the attack complete, the final stages of the illness take shape. Now covered in the remnants of battle, black flecks of airborne assailant, the runner, once full of vigour and valour, simply loses the will to live.
Although, I loathe these insects, and their affinity for my lungs, I cannot help but respect them for their persistence and courage. That’s right, I said courage. From the research I have conducted, it has become apparent that these flies live for a very short period of time, and spend the majority of their lives reproducing; an ethos of peace and love. To them, my heavy footsteps and unwavering trajectory must be an equally forboding image, as I approach their heavenward spiral of copulation.
Now I ask you, if a giant of Godzilla-like proportion was bearing down on you and your peaceful society, would you be first to throw your body into the face of the beast? It is as if each fly that I remove from my hair, nostrils and eyelids following a run is like a fallen soldier in an ongoing war to preserve the ways of their society. How can one not stand in awe of their skills in combat; their singlehanded ability to take down a giant foe unseen since David felled mighty Goliath with nothing more than a slingshot.
Legends are rife with poisonings and deception, destiny and divine intervention but, in retrospect, it can be concluded that Pheidippides was most definitely struck down by this same affliction. Although a proper autopsy was never performed, the available evidence points to perhaps the first documented case of bug in mouth disease: an Athenian warrior, unscathed in battle, and able to traverse the epic distance to Athens,
suddenly falls dead. Like another famous Greek, poor P possessed a vulnerability foretelling of his unfortunate demise.The lesson to be learned: don’t be too quick to proclaim your victory to others, as opening your mouth too wide can trigger every runner’s achilles heel; don’t let a fly through the lung be the cloud on an otherwise sunny day.
This essay, despite a couple of metaphors that cry out for blockage, is brilliant, and we ALL can identify with the feelings that Bearse goes through.
Now, a photograph of Bearse completing the Ottawa Marathon. How many bugs did he swallow??
