Placed 30th of 100 winners in the Feature Article category of the 74th Annual Writers Digest Writing Competition 2005; 18,000 submissions; 500 winners among 5 categories
I took up running at thirty-six, and just like going back to college or having children later in life, the depth of what it has done for me, both physically and mentally, is phenomenal. I grew up never getting dirty, never sweating, never exerting myself enough to be injured. Now, my favorite times to run are either late at night when it is snowing (the quiet is palpable) or in the rain, when my sneakers come down hard in puddles and soak my legs, when I am all alone outside, absorbed in my thoughts and the physical strain of finding my limits.
Now, I love to smell the changes of season -- decaying leaves and earth; an early morning rain in summer hitting dry, hot pavement; woodstoves in the early winter evenings; the overwhelming scent of lilacs, pine. I lift my face to pelting rain and lick falling snowflakes as I run. I have seen the sun rise and set; I have experienced the "runner's high;" and on one occasion heard my Godvoice. Running has awakened all of my senses, and nothing has made me feel more alive.
Ironically, my taking up running had nothing to do with me.
In 1997, my husband lost every hair on his body within a 10-week period. Prior, he didn't even have a receding hairline. It was, at first, frightening as he visited doctors to determine if there was something medically wrong, and then, for him, traumatic as the realization set in that his hair may not come back. Doctors could give him no explanation other than it may be caused by stress.
My husband's response was to shut down. He stopped everything that was "him" until he became himself again, which he believed (hoped) he would.
He has always been a runner. If this was caused by stress, the worst thing he could do was stop running. I saw early on that I could not tell him anything. This was something he had to work through on his own; it was deeply personal. I had no intention of staying with running; I only thought my taking it up may prompt him back to it, and then I would stop. Initially, I could not run from one telephone pole to the next.
Within a few weeks, I could run a mile without cramps. After giving birth twice, with everything loose, I could actually do it. Juggling a full time job with two young boys, I found that thirty minutes alone a luxury. Each time, I would run a little further before walking. I increased mileage gradually, but each day I would not let myself walk earlier than the time before. At two and a half miles, I was still walking some, but less each day.
Then I visited a friend who had run the Boston Marathon. I asked her how she could possibly run three to four hours. What did she think about? She said she meditated or prayed. Of course she did. I was beginning to understand. She responded matter-of-factly, "You just do it. You just don't let yourself stop." Oh, you just DO it. Well, OK then.
I never walked again. I ran as far as I could every day, each day further than the time before. And I LOVED it. It was as much about my head as my body. I asked my husband his tips, how to swing my arms to assist not work counter, how to breathe. He told me. He was interested in teaching me. I sparked his interest and re-focused some of his thoughts away from his hair.
About six months in, I knew what I had to do. I am not a racer (but then again, I wasn't even a runner). I told my husband I wanted to run the Beach to Beacon road race. Competition freaks me out and 10k is 6.2 miles which is a long way for someone who had never run further than three and a half. But none of that mattered. I announced I wanted to sign up, and I would feel so much better if he would do it with me for support.
He mulled it over and said he would. Behind my smile, my head was saying "YES" and pulling my fisted arm down from skyward in success. To run a race, he would have to train; he would have to start running again. And he did.
The first time I felt the "runner's high" and oozed excitement, my husband, with disbelief, asked me to describe it. In his lifetime of running, he had never experienced it. It has come to me only on a few occasions, occurring only when I push beyond my comfort zone. It is obviously a chemical thing, endorphines released from my brain or something, but the feeling is one of clarity and outer-body sensation.
It was at one of these times that I heard my Godvoice. A guest on the Oprah show years afterward spoke of her Godvoice, and I knew what that woman was talking about. I had not had a term for it; it is hard to describe the indescribable. It was a complete thought without words and it was not mine. My voice said, in summary, "This is not it for you. The running is just showing you what you’re capable of when you truly put your mind to something." The thought was so alarming that I strained for it to continue, to happen again, to tell me more. It would not.
My husband and I ran the Beach to Beacon 10k road race that August. Throughout, he stayed just off my left shoulder, slightly behind me. He ran at my pace, 9-minute miles, which undoubtedly killed him to watch lesser runners passing him. One passer-by said to him, "You make this look easy!" He was barely exerting, but he was smiling. He simply supported me through the whole race, so like him.
As we headed up the final hill into Fort Williams Park, he began barking orders at me, "You go for it! Pass that woman! GO!!!" Startled, I gave it everything I had, and the girl who had never sweat crossed that finish line, at exactly my goal time, one year from not being able to run from one telephone pole to the next. My husband cruised in behind me, smiling. He was smiling because I had done it; I was smiling because he had done it.
The next year, he ran again himself, at his pace. Cheering him on the sidelines brought me to tears. My husband was coming back.
He now runs the Beach to Beacon every year (and I run the neighborhood). In training, he sometimes takes twelve mile runs through the hills of West Falmouth. I tell him no hair makes him faster. At forty-eight, he still has almost zero percent body fat. If he keeps it up, maybe he too will (finally) experience the runner's high if he will push himself outside his comfort zone.
I can only wonder what his Godvoice might tell him.
(photo: Portland Head Light, Cape Elizabeth, Maine)
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