Runners

Yes, my fat ass was a runner. In college. Of course, like a lot of things I was in college, I'm not anymore.

But I do miss it. I've been missing it for a while now. I can recall blogging over a year ago about my first run since I'd been married. The first real run, the kind where the blood rushed through my ears in synch with my heartbeat and I thought I could do almost anything.

My good friend and past-partner-in-crime, Lourdes, is now a runner. I do not know how or when she gave up smoking and lost all that weight to become a real, true-to-life runner, the kind that participates in triathlons. I've never participated in any of those things. The closest I came was the AIDS walk for Greater Cleveland, and I went home with blisters. I've watched her post things about it on facebook and find myself wondering, why did I ever give it up? No matter how bad things went in my life, even when I was dying of cancer. I ran. I f*cking ran.

But tonight when I learned my husband would keep my son overnight ostensibly so that I could make my 7AM call time tomorrow for new student orientation, I decided to run. Needless to say my weekend with Sagar means I needed little in the way of additional exercise, I did it anyway.

17 minutes later I'd run a total of 11 minutes and was back on my couch, red and sweaty. By all accounts it was a pathetic attempt at athleticism. But I am not, nor will I ever be an athlete. I will not run a marathon or a triathlon. I will not win any medals.

And yet I am a runner.

I found myself familiar with the difficulties of running in an urban environment again: the completely unsafe practice of wearing an iPod (I found that out the first night I ran alone in Cleveland), the random pieces of junk you may trip over, the blinding urban sun pounding into you and bouncing off the concrete into your eyes, the car exhaust, the dog shit, all of it. I remember it all. I didn't fall even once, though it's common to do when you run in the city. I got my usual post-exercise headache and my face was redder than it's ever been.

And, since I am not one who falls prey to those pesky endorphin highs, I also found myself in a crappy post-exercise mood. I have three things working against my athletic prowess: I do not like to exercise, I do not get the endorphin high, and I fail to see it's results, therefore I tend to shy away from it. The only thing I love is the freedom to run.

There are fewer pleasures like reminding yourself that you've done it before, so you can do it again, and then watching it happen.