Oct
11
To Run or Not To Run
Filed Under Running | 2 Comments
About a year ago I had a depressing realization: I was fat. Not in a you’re so disgusting other people see you and don’t eat for a week kind of way, but in more of a you just don’t look fit kind of way. Except for a brief period in my freshman year of college, I’ve never been truly physically fit. In high school I was skinny, but there were no athletic qualities to back it up. I wasn’t a sprinter, long distance runner, or lightweight wrestler; I was just small. I think I can best sum it up by quoting Charles S. Dutton’s character from the movie Rudy, “You’re 5 foot nothin’, 100 and nothin’, and you have barely a speck of athletic ability.” Unfortunately, I can’t lay claim to the line that followed it, “And you hung in there with the best college football players in the land for 2 years.” I did deliver one hell of a pizza though.
So there I was, unhappy with my physical state and not quite sure what to do about it. Fortunately, this realization coincided with my wife’s return to grad school. Not only did I need to get into something resembling a shape other than round, but I needed to figure out a way to do it cost effectively. Gym membership got tossed out the window immediately, too expensive. Cycling required an expensive bike and I would also have to drive somewhere where I stood more than a 50/50 chance of being the victim of vehicular homicide. My condo didn’t come with a pool, so that just left running.
My relationship to running is probably a familiar tale to any serious runner. Some days I hate it, some days I love it, some days I don’t care either way. There are times when I would rather do anything else, and I mean anything else, than run. And there are times when I feel like I need to run so badly that I finally understand what it must be like for people with an addiction. Because that’s what running is, an addiction. Once you’ve got the itch, it’s almost impossible to go more than a couple days without scratching it.
Of course, running is not as cost effective as I thought it would be. There’s shoes, socks, shorts, t-shirts, long sleeve t-shirts, shells, jackets, pants, Body Glide (not what you think it is, get your mind out of the gutter), GU (seriously, out of the gutter), etc. And those are the things you need to be a casual runner. If you want to run races there’s a whole other set of purchases required. I know that there are some people who never have and never will run a race, nor do they have a desire to, and that’s fine, because at the root of it, running is a very personal thing.
Everybody comes to running for different reasons. Mine was a desire to feel good, to be “100 and nothin’” again, although this time with a little bit more athletic ability. After 1 year, 6 races, over 350 miles, and 17 pounds, I know two things for certain: I feel pretty good, and I have no intention of stopping.