I took last week off from posting to get caught up with writing the posts and to give the following post the attention it deserved.
Three days ago I ran the Spinx Half Marathon, nine years after the first time I toed the line and ten years after I first heard of the race. This past decade has held incredible changes, all for the best, as I reach a point that seemed so far away when I first put on a pair of running shoes.
For a while, I struggled to pinpoint when I first became a runner. I even started this post and then abandoned it when I thought I should count my first half marathon training cycle as the start of my running career. The more I thought about it, however, the more I realized that I became a runner the moment I first heard about the Spinx Marathon and set my sights on that goal.
Over the ten years I have gone from a person struggling to finish to someone invested in the long term. My first year as a runner I ran infrequently. I did not register for Spinx until three weeks before the race, scared that I would not make it to the finish line. In the nine years since then, I have crossed sixty more half marathon finish lines, completing every single one that I started.
In honor of ten years on the run, here are ten things I have learned over this decade in the running life.
One, distance becomes like beauty, understood in the eye of the beholder. I once marvelled that I ran seven miles, all the way from my house to my grandparents and back. I take nothing away from that awe. In fact, I revel in the exhilaration that comes from conquering the new, from finishing and standing back amazed at what just happened. After ten years, that happens infrequently for me. That seven miles, rather than astounding now, feels like a run I could whip out several times a week if I got up and out the door soon enough.
Two, I learned how much I loved running and how I need to hold loosely to prevent idolatry. As I ran my first half marathon, I realized that the next year on that date I would be 26.2 years old. I fell headlong in love with running and the challenge that long distances presented. I became intoxicated on the thrill of running PR after PR, common for new runners. I started to define myself as a runner and felt lost at sea when I faced my first, and so far only, legitimate injury, a distal hamstring strain in 2013, four years after I started running. I learned that I can let go of running, that it should not define me. This became cemented in my psyche as I returned to teaching and learned how to balance everything involved.
Three, I love the half marathon distance. Earlier this year, the number of half marathons I have run surpassed the number of 5ks to become the distance I have run the most. When I first started running, I ran 5ks more frequently due to their availability. I don’t like 5ks, an ironic statement considering that I currently am training to attack my 5 year old 5k PR. If I pay for a bib, I want to get my money’s worth. With a 5k, just as you settle in, you approach the finish line. I love running long on Saturdays. 3.1 miles? Not long enough. In contrast, I love the half marathon. I get out there, alone with my thoughts, even when I race with Mom, and run for a couple hours in companionable silence with so many others also out there conquering the challenge.
Four, I love running big races with hundreds sometimes thousands of other people. When someone close to me becomes a runner, their enthusiasm provides a boost by proxy. This boost explains why the Lakefront Trail in Chicago will forever hold my heart. This trail provides the perfect opportunity for thousands of people to get in a run or ride with so many others, sharing a common passion while getting multiple glimpses of natural and manmade beauty.
Five, running has taken me all over the world as my vacations turn into racecations. I fell in love with San Francisco thanks to the San Francisco Marathon, which if it did not cost so much to fly out there, I would still run every year. I saw two incredible castles in England as I started at one and finished at the other running 10k in between. My marathon PR came with a backdrop of the Colosseum and everything else Rome and Vatican City has to offer. Sightseeing in the Swiss Alps came courtesy of the Zermatt half marathon. Pretty much each time I travel, I try to find a race, usually a half marathon, to start my trip with. I know that this will continue in the next decade of running and beyond.
Six, I discovered my writer’s voice. Over the decade and a half of my adulthood, I tried to start and maintain a blog with varying foci. Not until I started running and thus chronicling my training and recapping my races did one of these efforts stick. Although I did change the platform three years ago, and purchased my own domain, writing about running opened the floodgate, bringing me all the way to point of today’s post. Running and writing about running got the ball rolling.
Seven, while I love running in large races with tons of other people, I do not like running with people, ie in lockstep with them. The obvious and only exception to this is running with Mom. My preferred running companionship consists of a part of one as in only one other person aside from myself. When I first started running, I ran by myself; Mom did not catch the running bug until three years later. As a person, I tend to be okay on my own and this extends to running. I have tried running with a group before but I usually ended up on my own or suffering through meaningless small talk. Running with Mom, however, provides the perfect opportunity for us to spill our guts to each other. I love the fact that my best friend is also my best running partner.
Eight, I still become easily frustrated with the fact that most fast race times come not to women. These women seemingly retreat back to tacit agreement with the weaker sex argument. I also continue to be rankled by the type of swag offered at women only races like the Tiffany necklaces handed out by good-looking men at the finish lines of Nike Women races. My competitive nature wants to scream to every woman out there that it’s okay to be a little bit competitive. Thus, I love the fact that I have a female student who just recently ran an 18:53 cross-country 5k, a time I will likely never approach on the road.
Nine, I love the lingo, techniques as well as the elite world of running. I follow these races and athletes with as much as I once followed baseball. Seeing these elite athletes motivates me in a way that watching no other sport does. I identify with these athletes, knowing, of course, that their skill and ability far surpasses my own. They inspire me to do better, want more, and keep going.
Ten, I have found a lifelong pursuit. The longer I run, the more I hope to keep running for as long as I possibly can. My once fast and furious goals have given way to a deep persistent thrum of running for years. This has become my number one goal, surpassing all other time or distance goals. I cannot wait to see what the next ten years on the run will bring.
