The gauntlet one year later, a retrospective on running
June 18th, 2008
It was one year ago today that I became a runner. At least, it was one year ago today that I got drunk and decided to start running. The actual exercise part didn’t start for a couple more weeks. Because of this anniversary, I’ve been reflecting on running and trying to determine whether I have moved beyond the hatred that plagued our relationship in my youth.
I’ve learned there’s much I admire about Running.
I’m a confident and competitive academic with a tortured history with athletics. I am the glasses-clad, graceless girl afraid of the volleyball who was always chosen last in gym class. Accordingly, running helped me find a new kind of self-love and confidence. As a sport, recreational running is inclusive, individual and incremental. It’s available to all ages and abilities, all sexes, sizes and shapes. One race cures the intimidated participant who witnesses a wave of different people mixing together with a common purpose.
While running is certainly competitive, the goal is individual achievement, not adversarial triumph. For the 99% of runners who have no expectation of winning, the race is against yourself, against the clock. It’s about setting realistic expectations and working hard, bit-by-bit, goal-by-goal, to achieve them. It’s about convincing yourself to carry on when you’re tired and about learning to treat your body well.
In the few races I have run, I have always felt embraced and encouraged by others. When you run even one race of any distance, you become a “runner.” The competitors are supportive: “Good work, runners,” they’ll call to you as you pass, happily sharing their label, graciously admitting you into the club. People on the sidelines cheer, “Stay strong, runners. Finish hard.”
Still, despite my better understanding of running, our relationship still feels more like tolerance, more like coexistence and less like fondness. I still approach training with a feeling of requirement. I still rarely achieve a high. I find it easy to justify a shortcut when my legs hurt or when I’m not feeling up to par.
And, two weeks ago, when I ran my first half-marathon, I learned that Running will not tolerate my disrespect.
After running the Ten Mile last fall, a half-marathon seemed reachable. Never a math whiz, I simply thought “If you can run ten miles, you can run 13.” Nevermind I was fresh off my holiday break, in which I’d traded running for eating for several weeks.
No, instead of the constant and considered way I trained for the my first ten mile, I approached preparation for the half in the same procrastinative way I used to approach my schoolwork. I tried cramming it all in on the cusp of the deadline. I jumped in at week 7 of the 12 week program and forced myself to do the long runs.
Running long distance requires patience, pacing, diligence and commitment. So while I managed (barely) to finish the half-marathon, I didn’t experience the joy running provided me on that first run. I failed to meet my time goal, but worse, I felt terrible - tired, sick and dehydrated. I pictured running looking at me silently like my favorite professor: You got by, but you didn’t fool me. You are capable of better.
Despite my showing at the half marathon, I hope to run the ten mile again this fall. While I still don’t always look forward to running, I always feel like a better person for having done it. We’re still a little tortured, but I’m not ready to give up on it just yet.