Well not at least for some years. I didn't find running again till I was in college and our basketball coach made us run to cross train. We would run in the woods behind our school up along Suicide Ridge and on the loops around the corn fields, down on the farm. I remember thinking 'would the knee hold up?' and it did. Then I switched schools, and moved cities and ended up in the cold north. I couldn't play basketball anymore because this new school was D3 and I wasn't even all that good. But the fitness bug had gotten in my blood and I wanted to keep exercising. I thought back to running down on the farm at sunrise at my old school. I thought about how good that felt, so I started running again. Just short runs, a mile at first. Through the run down neighborhoods and the apple farms of upstate New York. On days when the weather was bad, I ran on a treadmill inside. I went to school and studied hard for a degree that would take me nowhere. But I had running. Then after college I moved to DC and started training for my first 5K. Then my first half marathon, and then my first marathon. And well… the rest is history.
But sometimes, it's nice to go back to where things first began. The other day, while back home for the holidays, I went for a run. Now, I currently live in CO at about 5300+ ft and my home on the east coast is at sea level. Running at sea level after you've been up in the mountains is just the bees knees. ((I don't know what that phrase means really, but it's apparently really nice.)) But it was a wonderful run. I knocked out 4.5 miles in about 40 minutes, which for me is fast, very fast. I know I don't typically talk about times or how long it takes me to run, but I run about 10-11 minute miles typically. Sometimes it's slower, sometimes faster, but on average it's around 10. So running 4.5 miles, which normally would take me ~45 minutes, in 40 minutes was super quick for me. But more importantly, it was a good run, chock full of memories.
While running fast was a perk, the best part of the run was the route itself. I ran the route I had taken for many years between my parent's houses. It's about two miles total between my two homes, but I took a slight detour to bump it up to 4.5 miles. In the middle of my running route, I ran to my middle school and to the track where it all started. I really didn't like running when I was younger. I really didn't find it enjoyable like I do now. I had started running right there on that track because my friend Nicole wanted to join the cross country team and wanted me to do it with her. Now I didn't really have a lot of friends when I was younger, and when one of my friends was really gung-ho about something, well I usually went right along.
I have pretty vague memories at this point of my middle school experience in general, but I tried to call them up on my run down to the school. I remember our uniforms for meets were old, stiff, and felt like wool. I remember our coach looked exactly like you'd picture a cross country coach. He was tall and wiry. He wore coke bottle glasses and was awkward. I can't remember his name now for the life of me, but I'll never forget his face. He looked like he was from the 50s, only more awkward. He was quiet and yet his presence commanded respect for the sport and his coaching. You never wanted to disappoint him, his silent treatment was so disheartening. Thinking back on it now, he was probably just an awkward guy trying to do some good coaching an odd, awkward bunch of pre-teens.
I barely remember anything about training. I think I wore Pumas and cotton T-shirts to practice. I do remember trying to convince Nicole on our training runs to skip a block or two to cut down the total distance of our run course. I always just looked forward to it being over. I also was never all that fast. It was just something that I did for a bit. And it ended almost as quickly as it had started, with me then spending a year or so in PT rehabbing a very busted knee. I honestly thought (and in a lot of ways felt relieved) that my running career was over. Looking back on it now, I am glad I never got super involved in it then because I might not have loved it as much as I do now, if I became obsessed with being faster and better all the time back then. It's sad really that the focus on so many sports is one of winning instead of love for the innate nature of the sport. And I am grateful that I came to that love on my own accord, even if it was years later.
Running up to the middle school track was such a trip down memory lane. As I ran past the big glass doors at the front of the school, I remembered all of the school plays, choral concerts, and programs I attended in the auditorium that was to the right of those doors. My brain quickly zig-zagged from D.A.R.E. sessions to my art class just down the hall to the left and home ec class where I realized I could sew and bake, but cooking wasn't quite for me. And then there was shop class where we built little aerodynamic race cars and learned how to not cut our hand off when using a saw. It's funny how so many memories can be triggered by a simple run. After I passed the front doors, I ran down along the building and followed it as it curved around back.
As I ran past the back classrooms I was immediately taken back to Mr. Rodriguez's math classes, where he would keep the windows open in the winter because kids are less likely to fall asleep in class if it's cold, and how he told us about the first time he came to the NYC and was terrified of seeing Godzilla atop a building when he went down the street to buy his grandfather cigarettes. I remembered my history class where we learned about WWII and the Holocaust. I looked up to where the 5th grader classrooms were and honed in on my favorite memory from middle school:
Since 5th graders are coming off a recent transition to "big kid school," they build in a sort of playtime that isn't quite recess. It was in the class room and you could draw or read or build stuff I guess, but I remember vividly that my 5th grade teacher had all of the "classics" (classic novels) on the windowsill in our classroom. Every week I picked up and then finished a new book. I read all of them; Moby Dick, Frankenstein, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Great Expectation (Hated this one btw), The Picture of Dorian Gray, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Little Women, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, etc. You get the idea; I read a lot of books.
This wasn't all that strange as I started reading at an early age, and really loved it. I was reading books above my grade level by 3rd grade. I do realize these are rather complex novels, so I can't say I fully grasped what as going on in all of them, but I certainly read them. I still feel this way about reading and books and reliving that memory really made me very happy.
I kept moving along and passed the gym, where I discovered that I wasn't a huge fan of team sports and was more of a lone-sport girl (one of the reasons I think running long distance ended up working out so well for me later in life). Then I was at the back of the school, where the tennis courts, handball court, baseball diamond, football field, and most importantly, the track were. It's where it all started. Trying out for the cross country team, running as fast as I could at the time. Workouts after school, and training runs that started and ended there. It is where it all began.
I took my time, for in a lot of ways this way a big moment. A coming home. The sun was starting to set and brilliant yellows, blues, and ambers were blending together with the white wisps of clouds. It all started right there. I looked down at my shoes in the mud just off the track. Just a couple of laps for old times sake.
It was nice being home. Happy Holidays folks!!
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