The Dark Side

I became a runner a few months after turning fifteen if you exclude those dreaded mile runs in junior high gym class. And I remember the exact occasion it happened. It happened one summer night while playing hide-and-seek with my friend Josh and his younger brother and their dad. The game was neither planned nor ever repeated. That one night we found ourselves behind their house happily stomping all over the #16 fairway, hiding in the darkness behind stout pecan trees and wildly chasing each other over smooth bermuda and the occasional strip of cart path.

The Wilsons were not stellar athletes, yet they were decidedly faster than me. And I wasn't much good for stamina either. Rather, I possessed a basic all-around slowness that had no benefit in the game. And I wasn't particularly stealthy; the game ended after I blindly ran into a low-hanging branch and ate a mouthful of bark. Yet something clicked that night. I felt a noted dissatisfaction in myself, and I decided to make a change. I decided to become a runner.

I knew nothing about being a runner. I had never run more than a mile in one go -- at least, not intentionally -- and at first I found it impossible to go much farther than one. I was good for a trip or two around the block, and then I was done. My lungs were shallow, my legs weak, and my mind-body connection nonexistent. My feet slapped against the concrete with a definite lack of ease, and my breathing was forced and lacked rhythm. But soon things began to synchronize, my body began to adapt, and distance became not such a big deal.

I ran throughout high school -- always on my own around the neighborhood, never as part of anything official -- until my senior year when I began my nine year journey through back problems. After the first surgery I returned to running but somewhat sporadically and never as enthusiastically. By the second surgery I was calling myself a cyclist and didn't care so much anymore for running. My happiest years running were those few years as a teenager; it never came back.

***

In just under seven weeks I'll be running a half marathon. This is pretty big for me, not so much as an achievement but that I have it as a life goal not to run a full marathon and this is about as long a distance as I'll run. I signed up for the half because these days I've been hanging around some bad influences who sign up for these sorts of things. Peer pressure at work.

I signed up not knowing whether I'd train. Of course I'd cross-train on the bike; I have no choice. I didn't know whether I'd do any actual running other than the one or two obligatory jogs to break in the shoes and to lessen the shock on the big day. I know I can endure through a half marathon relying solely on core cycling fitness. What I don't know is how well I can do it.

Now I've made up my mind; I'm training for this thing. My first day was today; after arriving home from work I took from out of the box the shoes I bought the week before. They're the first pair of shoes purely for running that I've owned since moving to Phoenix. And then I ran a few miles around my neighborhood.