Passion: The Fire Within Spring 2012, 18th Issue (UNDER CONSTRUCTION MAY 10 TO MAY 15)
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Life's Song By: Marc Champagne, Marketing Specialist and Musician
Running With The Bulls and Taking Life by the Horns
It was spring of 1974 and I was in the planning stages of taking a summer trip of a lifetime to Europe.I was motivated to run with the bulls after watching a program on TV. The show I watched showed young men like myself running in front of huge bulls through the streets of Pamplona which was a place I'd never heard of, but now wanted to visit while in Europe.
Arriving in Pamplona, Spain, a full week before the seven-day San Fermin Festival began and equipped with very little knowledge of what the running of the bulls was and how I could participate, I talked with people native to the area and tourists like me. The average run takes around four minutes and you can run each day for seven days. Equipped with this knowledge, I began to prepare.
Like Forrest Gump, I started to run everywhere rather than walk. First I ran around the campsite I was staying at and then to downtown Pamplona where the actual run would take place. I felt great and experienced a new found energy that I did not know existed in me. I was on a mission to accomplish what few men dared and live to talk about it.
I entered the fray on the morning of July 7th completely wired for sound, wide-eyed and bushy tailed even though I had not slept a wink the night before. There were men, thousands of them, both young and old milling around anxiously in the streets, legs pumping up and down like athletes do before a race, each of them armed only with a rolled-up newspaper in their hands, ready to fend off any enraged bull that got too close to them.
BOOM, a rocket goes off and I almost peed my pants. I start running very slowly at first imitating my fellow runners and then another BOOM and things started to get interesting. Guys picked up the pace, heads spun around looking for bulls, and the sound of thousands of running shoes hitting the pavement seemed to make time stand still.
That was until I felt a hand grab my shoulder and haul me into a small alcove, almost a crevice in the wall of the street. In a blink of an eye, six gigantic bulls, shoulder high to me, trample through the spot I was in a second before. I looked at my saviour with gratitude and jumped back into the street, running like a demon, wanting to catch up to the herd which now heading into the bullring where I would get my picture taken by the hundreds of photographers who lined the streets. The third and fourth rockets BOOMED and the run was finished.
I was still standing, I had survived my first run which was four minutes of total adrenaline pumping action!
Although exhilarating and wildly fun, when I look back today I have to ask myself, "Was I really great or did I make an unwise choice?" I believe that by running with the bulls for seven days so many years ago, I had set the wheels in motion that continue to drive me to be great both in my personal and business life. With a little perspiration and all-out determination to go the distance, you can accomplish and achieve whatever you set out to do. So before you dare to be great, you need to ask yourself what the repercussions will be and how your actions will affect others. If you believe that no one, including yourself, will be harmed then grab the bull by the horns and go for it!
