Still Running?

“Still running?” my mom asked me during a recent phone conversation.  My first reaction was the exasperated, “Of course.  Why wouldn’t I be?”  But then I realized that I haven’t been a runner all that long.  Four years almost exactly, in fact.   My mom has known me as a non-runner for a lot longer than she has known me as a runner. 

I did a little running during high school and college, mostly to keep my weight down.  At IU, I would jog at the HPER indoor track with my Walkman on, singing to Led Zeppelin and Van Halen loudly and off-key. After graduating, my workouts were intermittent.  I would get a gym membership for awhile and then let it lapse when I got bored with working out on machines.

When Nels and I moved into our first house, I started my almost-daily walks around the neighborhood.  Nels would join me sometimes, and we developed an hour-long route in which we managed to pass all the houses with outdoor cats and see how many we could pet.  There were regulars who trotted down their driveways as soon as they saw us.  Others regarded us with wary disdain. 

We established another walking route when we moved to Rhode Island in 2005 and made some new feline friends.  Because I kept a brisk pace for an hour 5-6 days a week, I considered myself reasonably fit.  My weight stayed stable for the most part, and I assumed that my lifelong lack of speed, agility, and flexibility meant that walking was all I would ever do.  It never, ever occurred to me to run. 

That changed after a visit back to Indiana for Christmas in late 2006.  We had a short layover in the Philadelphia airport and had to run from one terminal to another.  I remember trotting along the horizontal escalator, lugging my giant backpack, just to see the plane pulling away.  For the next hour, I coughed uncontrollably and couldn’t catch my breath.  We sat in white rocking chairs in the middle of the terminal as I hacked and wheezed, trying not to call too much attention to myself. 

“What’s wrong with me?”  I whispered hoarsely to Nels, between sips of water.

“You’re not in shape,” he said.

“WHAT?”  I thought.  Luckily for him, I couldn’t muster the breath to cuss him out.  “Of course I am in shape.  I walk almost every day!” I said to myself. 

Slowly, slowly, as he ate breakfast and I continued to gag, I realized he wasn’t insulting me.  He was telling the truth. 

So I started running, and he joined me.

We started to run sections of our former walking route, carefully rationing the running parts to be downhill or at least level.  At one point, Nels got injured, but I kept going, and decided to enter a 5K race in Colt State Park that summer.  I looked at training plans online and bought a real running watch.  Much to my dismay, when I timed my first mile at the local high school track, it was over 12 minutes.  For that entire spring, I alternated running days and walking days, finally running 3.5 miles in 40:30.  I wanted to make sure I could run at least that far before doing 3.1 miles in public.

The race was on a balmy June evening.  I was scared.  Would I come in last?  Would people make fun of how slow I was?  When I pulled in to the parking lot, it was reassuring to see kids and dogs, as well as runners of various shapes and sizes.  I had never realized that there would be other runners like me.  Real runners, especially those who entered races, were skinny people with ropy muscles, I had thought.

I finished the race in 33:58, faster than expected given my practice times.  I didn’t come in last, either.  My grin lasted for a week.       

I ran my last marathon at a faster pace than that first 5K, but nothing has surpassed it as far as joy and pride.  That’s when I became a runner, and I haven’t stopped since. Luckily for me, long distance running does not require speed, agility, flexibility, a skinny frame or ropy muscles. It simply requires health, perseverance, and listening to my body. 

For me, running is not a seasonal occupation, nor is a certain race on my bucket list.  Running is now part of my lifestyle, part of my identity, and part of my marriage.  So, yes, Mom, I am still running.