For the sometime runner, running is a complicated relationship.
The thing about running is that it is not like riding a bike. Or maybe it is like riding a bike, but it’s like riding a bike through a route that begins with a pit of molasses up to your knees, and then is followed by weighted tires, followed by a bed of nails before finally getting to the maintained trail.
And yet.
Every time I get to a point where I am running a solid three miles or so as a regular route, in good head space with reliable oxygen levels and muscle coordination, I feel good. I’m never particularly fast. I never go particularly far. But there’s a fresh mental clarity and a mind/body link that I don’t have in the off-season. I tell myself that this time, feeling this good, I won’t let myself get derailed. What is winter compared to this feeling of fit freedom? Last fall, I leafed through catalogs, debating winter running gear. 45 degrees is pretty pleasant running weather, even in a t-shirt, so probably just this vented slightly puffy pull-over would be enough for Denver’s fairly mild winters… I felt confident. Maybe a little smug. Right up until the day I realized… I’d quit. Again.
The problem with quitting running is that you don’t realize you’ve done it. Until you suddenly do the math and it’s been 6 weeks since you laced up.
In April, I had a no nonsense conversation with myself and decided that it was acceptable to take the winter quarter off. But it was now April, and therefore as a three-season runner (which I told myself I definitely was), it was time to begin again. And so I did. And then we had an April with double the average snowfall. And April is generally Denver’s second snowiest month, anyway, after March (Denver really knows how to do spring.) And so, my restart fizzled. And somehow another 7 weeks flew by, endangering my three-season status.
But to the sometime runner, spring begins a siren’s call.
First, you start seeing other runners. And you look at them with wistful jealousy, rather than thinking, “sucker,” and driving on.
Then, you start looking at the fall’s running routes fondly, feeling slightly proprietary.
And then, when dance music comes on the radio, you start thinking about new playlists. Elle King. Walk the Moon. Andy Grammar. Suddenly, they’re just asking to be compiled. And so you put on last year’s playlists at your desk, letting them seep back into your blood, even as you create new ones in the back of your mind.
This week, our school’s child care was relocated to a neighboring elementary school, taking me directly through last year’s running loop. “I used to run through here,” I said to the girls. “Really?!,” they said. “So far?” It’s not really so far, as the crow flies. But my heart repeated, Yes. Really. This far. This far. And I turned the radio up as Maroon 5 came on.
My youngest has had a bit of a difficult transition into summer. She has too much time on her hands, and needs more focused activities, and so she begins to act out. She’s as frustrated with her behavior as we are, not quite sure why it’s taking over her actions. Talking it over last night, while explaining why, yes, it would be an early bedtime again, I told her that sometimes when we feel things slipping a little out of control inside us, we need to be really aware of making choices to live our best lives as our best selves, including going to bed early and getting enough exercise to tire our minds and bodies out each day. And hearing myself, I knew…
It’s time to run again.
This morning, I woke up slightly sniffly. But also a little impatient. Siren song. There’s a satisfaction in lacing up running shoes that shouldn’t be discounted.
My youngest was the only other person up, so I told her I was going running. “Can I go with you?,” she asked.
And so we went.
About a hundred yards in, I remembered the pit of molasses. The siren song calls for the end-of-fall runner we were, really. This spring runner isn’t exactly the same person. It’s like you’re running in the shadow of the runner you were, trying to catch up.
But looking at my daughter, I thought, Worth it.
I pictured myself pushing through. I sang along to the lyrics of Work that Body (in my head, because my throat was dry as dust and the top of my mouth was like the Sahara.) I waved Eva back when she biked farther than I was prepared to re-route for. And when the helpful disembodied voice told me that I’d hit a mile, I thought, Are you kidding me? I revised my 2-mile plan in my head. But said firmly to myself, I will run each step of the loop back home. Maybe I secretly appreciated the necessary pause to discuss crosswalk etiquette with my pace setter, and maybe in the final 500 feet, I thought my soles were on fire.
Maybe I’m a sometime runner. But it’s summer. I’ve got a new playlist and I hear the call of it.
Go.
