My Running List About Running
Phases of my Running Life
I laced up my shoes and went for a much needed run today.
As my feet hit the pavement and later the trail near our apartment, I started thinking about the different phases of running in my life.
Phase 1: Running is just a thought.
As a kid, running came second nature as I would run amok on the playground. Eventually, as puberty and life went on, running suddenly became this endeavor that people seemed to do for exercise. And that seemed cool. I guess?
Phase 2: Running occasionally.
During college and shortly after, sometimes friends would ask me to go for a run. It was embarrassing, to say the least, how terrible I was at running. Even though it is something we are born to do as humans, I’m pretty sure I would have been one of those unfortunate ones claimed by Darwin’s theory. I wouldn’t have been able to outrun any creature and starved to death.
Phase 3: Running for the first time, officially.
I don’t know if it was because of peer pressure (in a good way) or just being in an environment where a lot of people ran races, but I remember that the first official race I ever ran was...a half marathon. It was one of those distances that was doable enough where a person could do it with minimal training, but it would just result in sore, stiff legs for a while. Luckily, I had time on my side and I am grateful for my body in my 20s that bounced back from practically everything.
Phase 4: Running for real, as real as an amateur can be.
Once I ran one race, then came a second. Then a third. And then came the trackers, the running apps, and the desire to beat my personal record during each subsequent race. While I never had the deep burning desire to do it professionally (kudos to those that do) it was the most ‘serious’ I had taken my running. Training and running the San Francisco marathon was the pinnacle of running for me. Somehow, I managed to survive 26.2 miles and had a lot of long (and beautiful) training runs around the city in preparation.
Then, up until I could run no more when I got pregnant, I hung up my shoes and didn’t run for years.
Phase 5: Running just for me.
Just a few months ago, I laced up my shoes and went for my first run around the neighborhood, in a new city. I think I had resisted because there was a part of me that ached for what running meant to me before: youth in a city that was full of promise. For the longest time, I was fortunate to have a running path that snaked me down a quaint neighborhood in San Francisco to the water. I would run through the fields, looking at the Golden Gate bridge in the distance. During golden hour, when the sun’s rays made everything rosy, it filled my heart with happiness. And, perhaps strangely at the time, sadness...because I knew that it was not forever.
These days, I don’t track my run. I don’t know how far I go, how fast I go. I just run. Sometimes I stop and take a picture. Sometimes I walk.
But now, I just run for me.
I’m not sure what other phases of running are in store for me. And as I was huffing and puffing down the road, I thought about how, if someone had asked me if I was a runner, I probably would have said no.
But today, I realized:
I am a runner.
As long as I can run.