Running
Today, I will attempt to run for the first time in 8 months.
Yesterday I had to literally run home from school to get something I forgot. Despite how humid it was and how tight my clothes felt, running felt great.
I used to run at least a mile a day. I would run at night, outside, all around Tempe. I would never get so exhausted that I couldn’t run home, so sometimes I would end up running three miles round trip. I sprained my ankle running in sand and couldn’t go back out for two weeks. When I did, it wasn’t really the same, and it was hard to pick up where I left off. I entered a 4.2 mile race and I ran the entire way, I didn’t stop, and I couldn’t walk afterwards. Besides the discomfort of the sprain, running felt like freedom.
I like to cover distance, jump over manholes and stretch as I wait for the crosswalk lights. I’d much rather run on the asphalt than the sidewalk because it’s easier on my bad knees. Treadmills aren’t really for me; they can feel like a “going nowhere” metaphor for life, which no one really wants to feel when they are exercising. At home I liked to run through the neighborhoods I’d spent nearly as much time in as my own. I ran past the familiar houses, now filled with new familes, no doubt, and felt completely safe. I ran to my elementary school, my junior high and my high school, where I played on the slide, did laps around the dirty track where I’d once refused to run “the mile” and earned a B in PE because of it, and ran as fast away from the high school as I did when I graduated from there; running felt amazing.
When I was on the gymnastics team in high school, I used to walk during our warmup run. As the captain, I would send my team along ahead, take a long sip from the drinking fountain and then jog in place, as if I’d lapped them and they were slow to catch up. We would run throughout the school, since our practices took place there, feeling wild in a place where we never were allowed to run. We ran up and down the mint green rubber stairs for punishment, when our coach thought we were slacking, and running felt like torture.
All these running memories, including going running on Christmas Day to fight off boredom, gluttony and sloth, have little to do with getting in shape or being physically healthy. I ran 8 minute miles and got down to 7 minutes and 15 seconds at my very best. The whole process made me mentally healthy, especially when I had a problem. Literally “running away from it” helped to clear my head and find the solution. Running felt like therapy.
If my bad knee, sore back and four hours of sleep behind me will allow it, today I’ll pick back up where I left off. Oh, and running is probably going to feel like pain.
