How Converse Chuck Taylor High Top All Stars Helped Form my World View - A Boston Marathon Blog (part 1 of 2)
by
Mark Jimenez
I’m pretty sure I’ve used the word Weltanschauung in this blog before. It’s one of my favorite words. German in origin, Weltanschauung basically means Worldview. But that’s an over-simplification. If you ask experts about Weltanschauung, or Google it, you’ll get a few different definitions. To me, Weltanschauung is the sum of one’s life experiences that help make everything unique about that person. We view the world through our Weltanschauung colored lenses. Two people might see the same thing right in front of them, yet they interpret it in completely different ways based on their life experiences. We see this all the time, and we only have to look at current events to see Weltanschauung in action all around us.
A strong part of my own Weltanschauung is the feeling of being an outsider, an underdog. If I don’t have a team I’m rooting for in any particular game, I’ll root for the underdog. I don’t want to be a part of any particular click (although I’m sure others see me as being a part of some group or another). It makes me mad when TV shows I watch become popular (I was a fan of Breaking Bad before it was cool to do so). I’m introverted, I don’t like large crowds, and my perfect day probably involves going to bed around 8pm.
I’m 44 years old. I wasn’t born this way. My Weltanschauung developed this way.
How did this happen? How did I get such a strong feeling of being the outsider, the underdog, the introvert?
It’s time for a trip down memory lane.
When I was very little we moved a lot. My dad went from job to job and then school to school. I was in Kindergarten in Berkley and first and second grade in Logan, Utah while my dad was going to Utah State. The summer after second grade, my dad moved us all to Las Vegas. I don’t remember how I felt about the move at the time. I was 7 turning 8. I loved Logan. I loved playing in the snow and building snow forts. I loved playing on the huge field at my elementary school. I loved that I walked to school and that in the winter the sidewalk would freeze and you could sit on your butt and slide all the way down the hill on the way to school. I guess kids don’t hate the cold as much as adults, because all of those things sound miserable to me right now. But at the time, I loved it.
I don’t remember much about that first summer in Las Vegas. I don’t remember it being hot (probably the same rule applying to heat as it did to cold). I just remember going to my first day of school at Ronzone Elementary for 3rd grade. I’ll never forget at recess that first day when I heard a 3rd grader, all of 8 years old, swear. I practically passed out. I almost died of a heart attack right at 8 years old. I couldn’t believe a kid was using bad words. I mean, I was floored.
To make matters worse, popularity seemed to be a very weird scale. I could not for the life of me figure out what made certain kids popular. I know it didn’t help that I had a bowl haircut and giant thick glasses. My parents were more about needs than social importance. I needed to see so I got huge glasses instead of more expensive glasses that might look better. I needed hair out of my face so my dad took me to barber school and let potential barbers cut my hair. I was an easy target. We went shopping for clothes at the swap meet. Anything I wore had most likely been worn by my brother before me. My mom ironed patches on my jeans on the outside, instead of the inside. It just never worked.
Eventually I began to pick up on what was helping kids be popular. And the weirdest thing was, it had had nothing to do with personality. A huge part of it had to do with shoes.
There was an amazing scale of popularity with shoes. The most popular kids, by far, all wore Vans Off The Wall. The next level of popularity came from wearing Converse All Star high-tops. A third level could be achieved by wearing AirWalks (I know, right?). After that, it was anybody’s game. I begged my parents for Vans for the longest time, but Vans, Converse, and Airwalks were all out of the budget. Wants versus needs. To this day my mom still asks me what my kids “need” for their birthday, not what they want.
Then one day it happened. We were at the swap meet and there was a pair of fake Converse high tops. I mean, those things looked just like Converse high tops. They just didn’t have the all star on them. I figured if I wore my pants over them nobody would know and then I would be popular! It was a fool-proof plan. Well, as fool-proof as an 8 or 9 year old can get. In retrospect, there were a few errors.
- The style at the time was for kids to cuff their pants.
- All that needed to happen was for somebody to lift my jeans up to see there was no all star on my shoes
I begged my mom for the shoes. I made the argument that I had grown out of my shoes and look how cheap these were and I’d wear them forever and love them and bla bla bla. And, believe it or not, we got them.
I kid you not, it worked. I was popular for about a day and a half until the most popular kid at school, Gary I think his name was, decided something was wrong. He lifted the cuff of my pants and saw there was no all star. Just like that my facade was over, and with it, my popularity. Not only that, but I had to keep wearing the shoes until I grew out of them. So the humiliation of trying to fit in, but being a phony, was repeated every day.
That’s just one example of how my Weltanschauung was formed. I’ve got more.
Why in the world am I sharing this with you? Isn’t this a blog about running?
Why yes, yes it is.
You see, for the longest time I was the outsider. There were those who qualified for Boston and then there were those who didn’t. I didn’t, and I was ok with that because it fit into my worldview, my Weltanschauung. I tried really hard one time to qualify for Boston and I failed. For about a month after that I forgot why I ran and I lost the enjoyment of running. Once I got it back I ran a Boston Qualifying time almost by accident at the 2020 Surf City Marathon. Even so, it wasn’t very much faster than the 3 hour and 10 minute cutoff required for my age group. I ran 3 hours, 8 minutes, and 35 seconds. Usually you have to be a bit faster than that for Boston to take you.
Applying for Boston wasn’t even on my radar. Then, after an early morning speed workout, Carl told me he registered for Boston. I asked him if they were taking 2020 times and he told me they were. Boston takes your time on your age on Boston race day, not how old you were when you ran the race. So in other words, if you are 43 when you run the BQ race, but 45 when you run Boston, you can run a 45 year told time when you are 43 and still go to Boston. I did some quick math in my oxygen-deprived brain and said, “Oh, I’ll be 45 in 2022, that means I only need a sub 3:20, and I have that.”
So I went home and applied.
But then I saw that while I do turn 45 in 2022, it isn’t until August. Boston is in April. Curse the lack of oxygen in my brain that made me think I had a shot. I clicked submit anyway because it was free and what the heck? I forgot about it. I told myself I didn’t want to go anyway.
Then I got the email saying that for the first time since 2013 the cutoff for Boston was 0 minutes and 0 seconds. Anybody who had applied with a qualifying time got in.
Holy shit (sorry 3rd grade me, I swore). I got in.
And while I’m happy about it, this really messes with my self-perspective and self-view. It flips my Weltanschauung upside down. How can I be an outsider? How can I identify with myself being an underdog when I’m a part of the crowd? You don’t know how much I used to laugh at the people who showed up to packet pickup wearing their Boston jackets. I was like “they’re letting everybody know how awesome they are.” And it made me feel better to poke a little fun at the people I perceived to be cooler than me. Because I’m an underdog, an outsider.
If you run, or if you have friends who run, then you’ve seen the Facebook posts that happen about twice a year. The first time is when a runner has been accepted to Boston. The second is when they run Boston. They all talk about how magical and wonderful it is. I’m keen to experience it, but it’s hard to shake these feelings of doubt. Part of me feels like I don’t really belong, even though I did run that qualifying time. Part of me worries about large crowds (did I mention I hate being in large crowds?). Part of me knows that running a marathon in a crowded race is difficult. I had bad experiences at both the LA Marathon and the Marine Corps Marathon, where there were so many people in the race that you couldn’t get around anybody. It was 26.2 miles of frustration.
But this is a once in a lifetime opportunity. I have to take it. And even though my friend Drew won’t be there (I really wanted to run my first Boston with Drew), I’ll have Carl (and Carl’s glorious hair) and my wife KJ there. I’ve never been to Boston, so it should be a lot of fun.
I’m often my own worst critic and my own worst enemy. Sometimes the hardest part of my success is me getting out of my own way. I’m very glad I made it to Boston. The hardest part won’t be booking the plane ticket or running the race, it will be convincing myself that I belong. Because at the end of the day, I think that’s what it all comes down to. I have developed this sense of being an underdog and an outsider because I have a fear that I don’t really belong. I’m working on it one day at a time.
So from now until April I’m going to start working on a Boston frame of mind. I’m going to listen to the band Boston, I’m going to hang out with Flynn and listen to his Irish/Boston stories. I’m going to sing “I’m Shipping Up to Boston,” and I’m going to be a fan of the Boston Celtics. I’m going to eat Boston Baked Beans (what do you mean they’re just candied peanuts?), have Boston Cream Pie for dessert, and eat all the Lobster Mac n Cheese available. I wonder if I can get a Roberto’s Breakfast Burrito in Boston?
But don’t ask me to cheer for the Patriots. That’s going too far.
From now until April, I’m going to work on convincing myself that I belong, that this isn’t another situation where somebody just has to lift my pant cuffs to see that I’m faking it.
I’m going to be talking a lot to long time Red Rock Running Company employee Michael Higgins about running Boston. Michael has a different perspective on Boston than I do, having run it several times.
Part 2 of this blog will feature my interview with Michael about his trials and experiences in Boston, and what running in Boston means to him.
To be continued...
