Please Don't Make Me: A Personal History of Running, Part One
They say it takes 21 days to form a habit. Or maybe 66 days, depending on who you ask. I’ve been running consistently for 1,200+ days, so I think it’s safe to say the habit’s stuck.
“Runner” has become a core part of my identity, for myself and for others. There are people in my life now who never knew me as not a runner. They want to know:
“Have you always been a runner?”
It’s a long story, and it’s not even a particularly interesting one—I mean, no one died or narrowly avoided a stabbing, and it’s not like I ended up being an Olympian or some shit—but who’s gonna tell it if not me?
Like most kids, I ran when I was playing and I ran on command during gym class. Running at recess was something I looked forward to, but doing it in P.E. was torture. (Remember running the mile for the Presidential Fitness Test?)
Then came junior high. I grew up in a small town where unless you were a nerd or a delinquent, you went out for a sport. To be clear, I was totally a nerd, but I somehow had decent social standing that, at 13, I was desperate to maintain. So I went out for cross country, a choice made based my lack of hand-eye coordination and fear of being hit in the head with a wayward sports ball.
I don’t have a lot of memories of cross country—either because it was so long ago or because I repressed them, who’s to say—but recollections include:
Practicing with the high schoolers and being both intimidated by the boys and disgusted by all their spitting. I do remember liking and admiring most of the girls, though. (#feminism)
Feeling myself slowly starve to death that first month because the beginning of season coincided with getting braces. My mouth hurt so terribly all I managed to eat was applesauce, and I was doing an unprecedented amount of exercise. (More than 10 years later, I would come to know this type of ceaseless hunger again while marathon training, though luckily orthodontia was no longer a factor.)
Taking turns finishing dead last at every meet with the only other junior high girl from my school. We were besties, but it’s sort of a chicken-and-egg thing—I can’t remember if we were friends who went out for the team together, or if we became friends because what choice did we have?
The cross country season ended and I had a short reprieve until track and field season rolled around. Other than trap (as in, trap shooting for anyone lucky enough to not know what that is), I think track was the only spring sport offered—and everyone went out.
Being on the cross county team was similar to riding the subway. For me, a Midwesterner, public transit is very inconvenient and kind of nerve-racking, but it’s also fascinating and I know I’m getting a good life experience when I suck it up and do it instead of shelling out for a Lyft. Being on the track team, though, was similar to seeing what I owed in student loans during my college exit counseling: Just really fucking depressing and anxiety-inducing all around.
The coaches made everyone on the team do at least one track event and one field event. It was obvious I wasn’t going to be winning any races at all, but I super wasn’t going to be winning any speed races, so I ran the 800 meter or the mile. For my field event, I dabbled in long jump. I was terrible. They had me move on to pole vaulting, citing my shortness as an advantage. I was terrible, but there were significantly less pole vaulters so I was stuck doing it.
For us mediocre and piss-poor tracksters, meets were more social events than anything. And it was fun, sitting around in the usually-nice weather in our sweats, snacking on whatever junk food we’d packed. But I had no fun until I’d finished “competing.” Until my events were done, I was too busy taking anxiety shits to mingle with the team.
A deep dark secret: One meet, I was so frantic to get out of competing that I repeatedly hit my ankle against the toilet in an attempt to sprain, fracture or break it. It probably goes without saying, but I was unsuccessful in Operation Self-Harm to Avoid Athletics.
At last junior high ended, and I dropped cross country and track like the big old deuces they kept rousing in my bowels to join theater and the speech team (activities that also gave me nervy poos, but were at least gratifying enough to make it worth it). Over the next four years, I only ran short distances, interspersed with lots of walking, on my mom’s treadmill in the privacy of the basement.
I went to college. I didn’t do anything that could be remotely construed as exercise; my schedule was full with class, non-sport activities and drinking. Enough drinking (and subsequent fast food eating) that I gained some not-insignificant weight. During summers, I moved back home and filled some of that drinking time with treadmill time. I’d shed some of the weight and then return for fall semester ready to begin the entire process again.
Then I graduated and I didn’t move home. I transitioned immediately into Adult™ life, complete with full-time, career-track employment and cohabitation with my fiancé. I was ready to celebrate, and running was the absolute last way I was going to do it.
The world’s least suspenseful cliffhanger is resolved in Part Two!