Running

My relationship with running started in the womb. An avid and dedicated runner, my mother ran through all three of her pregnancies and beyond. I don’t have a memory from childhood that doesn’t involve her going running with friends or training for a race or a marathon. Every morning she would drop us off at school and then head to the park for a six or eight or ten mile run. She is small and thin and passionate about fitness. She still exercises every day with the same friends she ran with when we were children, but now—doctors’ orders—they walk to preserve their bone density. Still, they are hard-core and fast. I’ll never forget the time I suggested I walk with them (four months pregnant) and my mom, as nicely as possible, suggested that I probably wouldn’t be able to keep up. And probably she was right.

I am not a natural runner, but people expect me to be because I have long legs. In fact, the fastest runners I have known in my running career have been small women with short legs. As I labored through my run at the back of the pack, I could see these little powerhouses off in the distance with the men, leaving me in their dust.

My earliest memories of my own running took place in our town during the annual Southern National Bank 1 mile fun run. Obviously, I had a lot of encouragement from my mother, but even with her support I still felt like my lungs were going to explode and my legs were going to fall off (at age seven or so). I did not like running. I also remember being somewhat forced to run, along with my sister, down to a tree and back after doing something we weren’t supposed to do—maybe just fighting—on the ride home from school. Running as punishment definitely did not improve my attitude. Then, as a teenager, I began a campaign against running because I knew it was something that was so important to my mom. In true daughter betrayal fashion I refused to run beyond the running I did as part of my tennis training. And when I went to college in New Orleans, as if to reinforce my anti-exercise and running stance, I packed on the freshman fifteen within two months. It turns out that pizza at 3am coupled with copious beer consumption is not so great for one’s figure.

Faced with the horror of no longer fitting into my jeans, I finally started to run. At first I could barely get from my dorm room to Audubon Park, but eventually I got stronger and my running got easier. I went from walking most of the short, two mile loop around the park to adding on the ‘fly’ and zoo loop for a total of about 3 miles. Sometimes I ran on the streetcar tracks. I made friends with other students who wanted to run and we would run together in the evenings, tracking out the routes that would take us past as many yards with sprinklers as possible. I ran the Crescent City Classic in the pouring down rain one year. Running wasn’t a daily commitment for me, but it was something that was gaining importance in my life and which I was beginning to be proud of. I was offended and hurt when I referred to myself as a runner and a not very nice boyfriend laughed, suggesting that the limited running that I was doing was not enough to count.

After that relationship ended and I was in a healthier state of mind, I trained for my first half marathon, which I ran with my mom, my aunt and my sister. I got shin splints and my toenails turned black and fell off. My legs cramped up at mile nine and I doubted myself throughout, but I finished. I also discovered that I had been wearing shoes that were about two sizes too small. Running the New Orleans half marathon became somewhat of a tradition in our family and once I got my shoes sorted out and really committed myself, I went from being slow and lumbering to being marginally speedy and light footed.

When I moved to Boston, I joined a running group that met at a running store near our apartment. Most of the runners had qualified for the Boston marathon, but some of them were planning to run it for charity. I wasn’t at the running a marathon point in my running career at that time, but I did enjoy being part of a pack of people who loved to run and went out running in all kinds of inclement weather. Prior to moving to Boston, it never would have occurred to me that I would go running on a sheet of ice in ten-degree weather. But I did. And I loved it. I also had managed, before Boston, to run on hills as little as possible, but in Boston I couldn’t avoid it. Although I hated them, the hills made me stronger and I was in the best shape of my life trying to keep up with those Boston runners.

I was accepted into the New York City marathon lottery just after getting engaged to Jim and making the cross-country move from cold, cold Boston to unbelievably hot and humid Houston. Luckily, we lived very close to a running store, so I quickly found a group of people to train with. Marathon training in the Houston summer required a level of running commitment I have never had to display before. Not only was I running further and more than ever before, but I also had to do it in the pre-dawn hours to avoid getting heat stroke. Jim was willing to get up with me during the Saturday pre-dawn hours and drive me to meet my running group at 5am. Then he would head off to a coffee shop for the duration of the run, pick me up again when the run was finished, and take me to breakfast. After breakfast, we both went back to bed for a large portion of Saturday and I was usually too tired on Saturday night to do much. Marathon training definitely was detrimental to our social life.

My whole family came to New York City to cheer me on during the marathon. It was Halloween weekend and it wasn’t often that we got to visit New York, so we did a lot of walking around the city and headed out on Halloween night to join the crowds in our costumes. The night before the marathon, I was nervous and hardly slept. I had to be up and at the buses to take me to Staten Island at 5am. After a weekend of too much walking and not enough sleep, I was exhausted before I even started the race. As the sun started to rise and I struggled to stay warm before the marathon, I felt lonely and discouraged, despite being surrounded by thousands of other runners. I was in a port-a-potty when the starting gun went off. Eventually I headed out with everyone else.

Running the NYC marathon was thrilling, but by mile six I knew it was not going to be something that felt good. During my training, I had breezed through my 21 mile run in the heat and humidity and at 4 am in Houston, but in New York I was struggling. At mile sixteen, as pre-arranged, my family waited, cheering and with signs and wearing bright orange sweatshirts with my name on them. I stopped to hug them and at that point I wanted nothing more than to quit and just go home. But quitting wasn’t an option. I had done too much training and come too far. I kept going, although I don’t remember much more after that besides stopping to sit on the curb in Central Park and hearing the crowds yelling for me to get up and that I could do it. For some reason their encouragement made me angry, because they weren’t the ones who had pounded the pavement for over 20 miles. I had been a spectator at the NYC Marathon before and it was a far cry from the experience of actually running it.

What got me through, actually, were the other runners, who, as they passed me, left me with words of encouragement. They did know the pain I was feeling and they also knew how much it meant to finish. When I came around the final bend to the finish line and saw the relief on my families’ faces (It took me an hour and a half longer than I had estimated and they were starting to worry), I felt proud. At the same time I felt disappointed in myself for taking so long. Then I cursed having a last name at the beginning of the alphabet when I realized that even though I was done with running, I still had to walk about half a mile to get to my designated family meeting area.

I kept running after the marathon, but only for fun and fitness. Since having my daughter, free time for running has been limited, but I still managed to go a few times a week before getting pregnant again and credit running with getting me back into shape again post-partum. I have made friends in every city I have lived in through running and plan, when my children get older and I have more time, to embrace running fully again. Maybe I’ll even do another marathon or maybe I’ll just be happy to be out there running again.