Why Run?

When I was about ten years old, my dad came home from work and saw my brother and I watching TV on the coach. He declared, “I’m not raising lazy Americans.” And from that day forward, we ran with him after work each day. He was an avid athlete, competing in triathlons and distance running for a very long time. But here’s the rub: I was already on the track team at school. This meant that I had PE in the mornings (actual PE, not that stuff the kids are doing now) and track practice after school too. So by the time my dad came home from work, I had already logged a few miles. Can’t a girl get a break?

Here’s the thing though: it was probably about a few months before my dad’s declaration that I actually started running. It all happened much like any middle school anything—I just wanted to see what I could do. So one day, in that morning mile, I thought, what if I just don’t stop this time? And I ran a mile in a time that started with a 7…I think.

That’s the part of running that everyone says but it doesn’t quite click for people. It really is mostly a mental sport. Even for competitive runners, you’re spending a lot of time telling yourself that you aren’t in any real pain or that you’re almost done or that you aren’t bored or that someone was right behind me waiting to come in with the crazy kick to humiliate me at the very last moment. It took me well past my college cross country and track-and-field careers to understand that not only was no one actually right behind, but if they were, good for them. They made it! But for more than a decade, I was trained to believe in that type of competitiveness.

By the time I got to college, I was a multi-athlete, competing in the pentathlon and heptathlon. It again started in the same way as my running. My coach suggested that I try shot put and javelin, and I thought, I wonder what I can do? And it turns out that I was decent enough at those and jumping to be a multi-athlete. And this is where I discovered another great thing about running: lifting. It seemed like the field event folks had the inside info on this entirely different way to be faster and go without injury; you get stronger. And I approach the weight room like everyone thing else, wondering what I can do.

There are a million people out there telling you why to run, and they’re right about all the things. But I want to share another aspect of it, that’s partly a parent seeing their child on the couch and wanting them to do more, partly the joy of seeing what you can do, and partly giving yourself time to listen to what you tell yourself.

I often times wonder how it is that I can do all of the things that I do in a day. And it’s likely because there will be twenty minutes or an hour or if I’m super lucky, two hours, when I will get to see how strong and capable I am. And that’s why I run.