I don't really consider myself a runner. I love to get up, go to the gym, and run on the treadmill three times a week. This is, for me, an activity of joy and of benefit, but I have long felt that it doesn't really count as anything other than a technologically assisted exercise. I run five kilometers every other day, but I have never run in a 5K race. I don't own fancy running shoes. I don't own fancy, absurdly short running shorts (and never will). I don't belong to a ‘run club’. I don't keep a run log. I don't read books about running, and I do not have a runner's physique. Just like with many other things in my life, I perform this thrice-weekly exercise with a high level of non-conformity. I suppose if I owned a Harley-Davidson chopper, I wouldn't ride with a group or only wear HD-labeled clothes. To quote Shakespeare in Henry V, “Such outward things dwell not in my desires.”
Aside from being averse to taking things to the point where they replace my personality, I never understood why people wanted to show everyone that they are for real-life runners. Unless I join the Marines and am kitted out with a rifle, battle fatigues, a 40 lb pack, and am running up a hill in balmy South Carolina, while a man in a campaign hat screams at me, I'm going to keep my running private and appropriately comfortable.
This past weekend, as we were headed out for a quick dinner after the kids left, we crossed town against a large-ish group of psychopaths out running at 5 p.m. in 90° heat. As we passed this slow-moving herd of sadomasochists, I laughed, reflecting how grateful I am that I am not a runner as the world and modern culture define the term. If I felt compelled to be out there with them, I would soon quit running altogether.
There could be nothing more distasteful to me than going outside in the summer heat. Being in that mess to run on purpose is unthinkable. The only thing that could make it even less appealing would be to go outside in the heat to run with other people. I am a practical man. I like to do things in a way that makes sense. None of that makes sense to me.
My aversion is visceral and based on experience. It all started with a man we called Chops. I was in sixth or seventh grade, and Chops was our recreational league soccer coach. I was not an athletic teen, at least not like the other kids, but I liked to play soccer and had spent several years to that point kicking around with my older stepbrothers. Given the option, I would have chosen literally anything other than being on a team sport, but I was told (like with everything back then, my own choice was flatly ignored) that I would be playing soccer, and I was put on a team of misfits and rejects from all the other local rec teams.
Chops decided that the best way to teach us the fundamentals was to have us run. And we ran. It was all we did. I don't think I saw a soccer ball the entire time we practiced for that season. The practice field was a large, flat acre of grass surrounded by a high chainlink fence, near my old elementary school. Each evening around 5, we would meet there and run ten laps.
I did not have asthma then, and had probably not started smoking yet. I was somewhat fit, being a country kid accustomed to country chores, and I rode my bike everywhere back then, which may have given me an edge. Even so, all the running did for me was create a strong desire to do anything but run. We weren’t in cross-country or track. Each practice brought me closer to the breaking point, and finally, I did break. I complained to my mom, but I wasn’t allowed to drop off the team, so being a pragmatic lad, I gained the support of my teammates and then, pointed out to Chops how miserable we all were. When that didn't change anything, off to the Parks and Recreation folks I went to register an official complaint.
The parks and rec muckety-mucks did something decidedly practical and efficient in response. They canned Chops, absorbed most of the team into the other teams (every good soccer team needs kids to sit on the bench the whole match to keep it from flying up in the air) and I got cut. I don’t think I was ever happier to that point in my life.
Many years have passed since those hot days running inside the chainlink fence, but the aversion never faded. PA summers aren't as hot (or they weren't), but the idea of running in a group with other people in the heat fills my mind with the pimply face of a badly-permed man with a mouthful of metal and a clipboard, standing or sitting while we slogged endlessly. I’ve done my time. It was useless then, and it remains so now.
I have had moments of insanity over the years when I thought that I could be a runner. The idea of getting into peak physical shape, of putting my disturbingly long legs to some use other than as a reason to lose sleep trying to find jeans long enough to cover the ankle, has occurred now and then over the years. When I reached age 30, I asked for a run journal and a pair of Nike running shoes for my birthday. I intended to run around the circular neighborhood we lived in. I calculated how many “laps” would get me to a mile and woke up early to get the run in before it got hot. I started out pretty determinedly, but it didn't last more than a few weeks.
My evolution into running came less from a desire to be considered or seen as a runner and more from the joy that I felt after each session of working toward a goal. When I first started back to running, just a few years ago, I couldn’t muster the energy to run more than about 30 seconds at a pop. As time went on, though, I grew more fit and started to make actual progress. It was a source of real pride that I earned through discipline and dedication. I was meeting a challenge, reaching a goal, improving myself, getting into shape a little at a time, and doing it all in a tiny gym provided for county employees, early in the morning when no one else is around.
That's not to mention the physical benefits I have gained. Running does far more than just build muscle and endurance. I sleep better, feel better, have more stamina, more core strength, and I have a much more balanced demeanor. I stay in a good mood almost all the time.
All of this has reinforced a central premise to my running habit: don't do anything to ruin it. I continuously challenge myself, run hard, and push forward toward goals I set for myself. I never do anything to make the exercise distasteful. I have had some “hairbrained” ideas over the years, where I thought this or that would be good to aid me in my running, but it always winds up pushing me too close to asking the forbidden question, “Why am I doing this?”
The consistency of my habit has created a strong desire to get up and run, even when I don’t necessarily feel like it. If I go, I’ll feel better; if I don’t, I’ll regret it and lose a day I cannot get back. I get up and I run. It’s not pretty. It’s not stylish. It’s just practical and steadfast. Yes, I do it with a large fan blowing at me, less than a foot away. I still sweat myself to the point of dehydration and yet, I go home, shower, change, go to work and feel wonderful for the next 24 hours. I love it.
And yet, as the last straggler ran past us that day, I reflected that, despite enjoying running as much as I do, I will never understand like that. What possible good can they get from that kind of miserable activity? It makes no sense to me. It looks horrible. When it was me, running for Chops, it was horrible. If that’s what it takes to be considered a runner, I will never be one.
I get almost as much happiness from feeling a sense of eye-rolling derision when I see them as I do during my treadmill outings. If I ever get to an age when I can no longer run, I will be happy that I confined my exertions to a semi-private discipline that never became about performing an exercise.
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