I have a theory about pain: it is increasing with a
decreasing rate. In other words, it is bounded from above. When you experience
something painful in your life it hits you very hard at the beginning but as
time passes and the pain increases, you feel less impacted by it. You adapt to
it and you live with it. When I start running long distances, I can see this
theory in practice. The pain grows and gets worse and worse but it always seems
that there is an invisible ceiling that bounds it and this makes me not to give
up because I know that the pain cannot exceed my capabilities to cope with it.
That is how I run.
On that summer day of September 13, 2015 when I stopped
cycling and return home, I could not think about anything but my big running journey.
I changed quickly and got out of the house for the second time that morning,
this time on foot. I ran down Fillmore Street until I got to Market Street.
From there I ran on Church Street to 16th street and finally I go to
Mission San Francisco de Asís. It is located on the corner of Dolores Street
and 16th street. The main entrance through the gift shop is on
Dolores Street. However I entered the building through a small door in the back
of the building on 16th street. When I entered the main room, the
choir was practicing for the Sunday mass. Inside the church was empty and dark.
I sat down on a bench and listened to the choir. It was a very good feeling to be there in that
moment in my life and at the beginning of that big journey. I always liked the spirituality
and was drawn into the religious beliefs about the God and its relationship to my
daily life. Few minutes passed and the choir finished their practice. The
church fell into a deep silence. I got up and walked my way toward the main
door. As I was going to open the door to exit, someone called me from behind “Good
morning!” I looked back and saw a smiling face of a guy dressed in a beige
suit. I smiled back and nodded. He extended his hand and shook mine warmly.
Then he took a look at my running outfit and asked “are you coming from a run?”
I laughed and said “Not yet, actually I am going to start a big one. This is my
birthday today and I’m going to run from here to Mission Santa Clara on El
Camino.” His eyes widened as he tried to digest what I just told him. He could
not believe it so I explained to him what my running goal was. “Happy birthday!”
he said and then asked “how “young” are you?” I laughed and told him I was
turning 34. Then he hugged me and told me that he will pray for me, that he
will keep me in his prayers that day in the church and that I should come bac
next week when I finished my run and tell him about it. Randy, as he introduced
himself to me, became my anchor that day. I could picture him praying for me at
the church and this became a powerful image that kept me running that day. If
what I experienced on my bike earlier that day was a sign for me to start this running
mission, Randy became the confirmation of it: a random guy in an empty church,
who was sincerely amazed by my running idea and promised to pray for me. Before
I left the church I visited the old chapel, the only intact mission in the
chain of 21 California missions that has even survived the big earthquake in San
Francisco in 1906.
I got out of the mission building around 10 am and started
running to Mission Street. Running or cycling on Mission Street from north to
south of San Francisco is a unique experience that I have done several times.
As you go down you can see the San Francisco Latin community stretched along
this long street: lots of taquerias and fruit shops with walls covered with
murals. Cross streets are numbers, then country names (there is even a “Persia”
street) and then finally you reach Daly City on the top a hill. As many other
areas of San Francisco, Daly City has its own microclimate. It has been foggy almost
every time I have been there. Just before entering Daily City, there is a big
Lucky supermarket where I stopped and got a snack. After Daly City, Mission
Street becomes El Camino Real and goes all the way down to San Jose. At the beginning
there are some cemeteries and memorial parks (Cypress lawn and Golden Gate cemetery).
Then I reached San Bruno and Millbrae where the airport is located and then
after that there are small towns (about 3 miles) until you get to Redwood City.
By the time I got to RWC I was exhausted and hungry. It was around 4 pm and I
knew that there is a big Wholefood market on the corner of El Camino and Jefferson
Street. All along the way to there I was thinking about a nice pizza place
inside this store. I knew they had a very good furnace pizza. I was imaging a
delicious fresh vegetarian pizza coming out of oven for my mid-run snack. So I
gathered all energy I had and pushed myself hard to get to Wholefood market.
When I entered, I could not believe what I was seeing. They had closed off the
pizza section for construction. This was the biggest disappointment of that day
after all those spiritual highlights. I got some humus and fruits instead and
continued my run to Menlo Park when I received that text message from Xiaojing.
Now I had to finish the journey and go back to see my friends. 
I was near
Mountain View when my phone rang. It was my younger brother, Shakib, who wanted
to say happy birthday. I told him what I was doing and told him that I still
had about 10 miles to go. It was good to hear a familiar voice as I was losing
all my energy and motivation. I was extremely tired and exhausted but there was
no way that I quit and gave up. I had to finish it even if I had to run very
slowly. So for the last 10 miles I tried to run but what actually was going on
was like you see a very old man jogging in the park. I could barely take a step
or stretch my legs enough to make a full step but whatever it was, I was going
forward and the distance was getting shorter and shorter. I was frantically checking
the distance on my phone. Every 0.1 mile was a big achievement, and there I
learned a big lesson for my future runs: no matter how far the distance is and
how unreachable it looks, it is composed of many small steps each the size of 1
meter or less. You won’t achieve your goal if you don’t take all of these small
steps. There is no shortcut, no way around it. You have to take all of these
thousands of steps to get there and although all I just said seems trivial and
obvious, it is not obvious at all in practice. In other words, there is no impossible
goal as long as there is a feasible path to that goal. Every small step in a
long journey counts and bears equal importance. I did everything I could to
finish my mission that day: I ran, jogged, walked, and dragged myself along El
Camino and finally I got there. Mission Santa Clara is located on UC Santa
Clara’s campus. I got to the campus few minutes before 10 pm when it was dark
and no one was around. I pulled up my map to find the location of the church. As
was walking along the path that Google map was showing me I kept my head down
and was not paying attention to my surrounding. Finally I figured out the route
and followed the blue dotted path on my phone until I got close to where it was
supposed to be the Mission. I looked up and here it was a beautiful old
building standing in front of me. I could not believe it. I had reached my first
mission-to-mission goal after struggling for 12 hours. I saw the beautiful
building and then I collapsed. I lie down right in front of the church and
looked up into the dark sky. There was no star blinking at me but one, the one
that rises from south and has been used by travelers throughout the history to navigate
the endless deserts of the Middle East. That was my star, Canopus or Soheil.
I called Xiaojing. The party was over and the guests had
already left. I had missed the party but I did not care about that anymore. I
was happy that I had started what I always wanted to do and I wanted to share
it with my good friends. After few minutes, Xiaojing came after me and found me
standing on the street shaking and shivering. It was a hot summer night but I
was feeling so cold. I got in her car that was packed with her stuff ready to
move back to Atlanta. “Do you have something to cover me? I’m freezing.” She
found a blanket and covered me with it and drove back to Palo Alto. We got to
Mirte’s house around 11 pm. They sat me at the kitchen table and brought me
food and drink. I could not have asked for anything more. “I think you have to
eat eggs” Mirte said while she was running to pour me some more soup. “…and
also beans, I have these Chilean super cool beans.” She said as she was looking
for more food in the cabinets. For an hour or so she took care of my exhausted
body, gave me everything she found in her kitchen. That kitchen and her
hospitality became an integral part of my mission runs after that night. She
opened her heart to me and embraced my mission project as like no one else. After
that night, her cute apartment in Palo Alto became in a sense my running
headquarters for the couple of my future mission runs.
Date: 13 September 2015
Duration: 12 hours
Length: 48 miles (77 km)
Link: https://www.instagram.com/p/
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