On Running...

I would like to be able to write about running in a manner that would guarantee you euphoric payoff for every mile you put behind you, but running has never offered such a guarantee to me, so I can’t honestly offer it to you.

I can say that running offers benefits to most people, but the benefits are different for everyone. A running partner I had a few years ago - a man in his 60s who ran several marathons a year - told me that when it comes to running, we are all on our own path. Even in competitive long distance running, you are running against yourself. I tended to run faster than he did, but he ran for much longer distances and would even run while injured by adjusting his stride. It worked for him.

My partner was not satisfied if he didn’t complete at least four marathons a year. When I met him, I was training for my first half-marathon. Others in our group, would declare victory if they could make it from the Old Town Alexandria Starbucks to the Woodrow Wilson Bridge and back without stopping. In this respect, running is for everyone, because we can all set our own goals and meet those goals on our own timetable.

I grew up in Manchester, Connecticut, the home of the Manchester Road Race. A Thanksgiving Day five miler. It is really about 4.75 miles, but when it was first held the course was a full five miles and they never changed the name. Lots of towns have Thanksgiving races, but the Manchester five-miler holds a special place in the history of long distance running in New England. For many years it was a must stop race for runners preparing for the Boston Marathon and a few Boston winners won first in Manchester.

When I was still in school, running was not the everyday exercise it is today. Back then, running was called jogging, and it was mainly done wearing heavy sweatsuits to promote perspiration as a way to lose weight. Runners, people who practiced running on a regular basis to take part in organized races, were held in high esteem and a mere jogger would never think to enter a race alongside a trained athlete.

Each year I would walk a couple of miles, from my house to the starting line of the Manchester Road Race. Usually it was cold and one year it even snowed. During a ten year stretch, from 1968 to 1977, one runner dominated the race, winning nine times. Amby Burfoot, was a lean, bearded, bespectacled, runner from Groton, Connecticut and Wesleyan University, who won Boston in 1968. To me he was like a god. He is in his 70s now and has run over fifty Manchester races.

I did not understand then, and at some level I do not understand today, how he could take to the course in temperatures just above freezing, wearing thin shorts, a tank top, and knit gloves, and run, at what looked like top speed, to complete a five mile course in about twenty-two minutes. I remember watching him stride down the final hill, on Main St., to the finish line, in front of St. James Roman Catholic Church. His legs were long and muscular. They rippled as they stretched several yards with each stride toward the finish. His arms were similarly strong, but fully under his control as they moved with graceful precision, providing momentum without using any excess energy. All the energy was directed toward the legs. He was tall, and though his cheeks were red, from the cold and the effort, he was not gasping for breath as he made his final sprint. I could see his lungs functioning like machinery under his rib cage exposed to the cold air by the cut of his running bib.

I knew I wanted to run like Amby, but I didn’t see how it was possible. He had something I lacked; ambition, competitive spirit, and the joy he got from putting in the work and winning races. In junior high school I signed up for the cross-country team, but I could never run well enough, or long enough, to be considered any good. I was convinced, after very little effort on my part, that I was not cut out to be a runner. And like the guitar, various sports and other momentary passions of youth, I gave up on running.

It was not until my early thirties that I decided to take up running primarily as a way to challenge myself to do something I had previously considered impossible. It was the early spring (I don’t remember the exact year), and I decided to sign up for the Manchester Road Race and begin training. I would build toward my goal slowly and by the end of April, May, June, July, August, September, October and most of November, I calculated; I would be ready to run five miles!

This is ridiculous as I look back, because these days I am quite disappointed with myself if I can only get in five miles on any given day. Five miles for me is a warm up distance (I say without boasting).

But that Thanksgiving, still carrying with me the burden of the perspective of a teen-ager who had convinced himself he was not a runner, I showed up in forty-degree temperatures wearing several layers of heavy cotton running gear. I had one strategy to keep warm and another to complete the race. I was over-dressed and over-prepared, but I did not know that. As I stood at the starting line, I felt foolish to be taking on a challenge only the likes of the great Burfoot were worthy of.

I met a friend from high school, near the start of the race, and he told me he was running that year with the goal of finishing with a time that was a number less than his age. He added, he wanted to accomplish the goal of beating his age while it was still something to brag about. I don’t know how he did.

By this point in the history of the Manchester Road Race, running was no longer limited to true athletes. A race that used to draw a few hundred serious runners now drew close to ten thousand each year, some dressed in turkey outfits and other non-serious running costumes. As someone who had dedicated most of the year to getting ready for the competition, this was disappointing. In my mind, I had prepared for the race as it was run in the early 1970s, but this was about twenty years later and the world of running had become main stream.

The first mile of the modern day Manchester race is so crowded that the pace is just a little bit faster than a brisk walk. The first major corner creates a bottleneck that slows everyone down just as you are reaching a normal running stride. The first two miles is about dodging other runners and finding a safe pocket to run in, hopefully with no one in front you dressed in a turkey suit or a pilgrim costume. Losing the race to a pilgrim adds insult to the injury of knowing that the elite runners are crossing the finish line at about the same time you are finishing mile two.

Needless to say, I finished my first five-miler with no problem. And I was very warm. Each year for the next several years, training for the Manchester race was my biggest running goal. It took another ten years before I shot for the next logical target; a half marathon. I approached this goal with equal seriousness and gave up in true junior high school fashion after a few weeks. I had convinced myself I simply did not have the time required to run eight to ten miles, several times a week, in preparation for a race that was more than six months away.

Another few years passed and I joined a running group while I was living in Washington, D.C. We met three times a week at 5a.m. and it was during this period of time (while in my early 50s) that I miraculously started adding on the miles with ease while getting faster. It blew my mind. I was becoming Amby Burfoot at fifty years old!

I signed up and completed my first ten-miler. Then a half marathon. The next year I did a series of half-marathons over the course of two months. One in Virginia, one in Maryland and one in Delaware. During training I called it the DelMarVa Triple Crown. I kept it a secret from almost everyone until the day before the last race, when I was certain I would complete the challenge.

Despite the success I have achieved on my own running journey I must report to you that running is not a joy for me, it is work. Yes, there are moments of elation when I meet or surpass a new goal. Yes, there are times when I achieve a runner’s high. There are times when I move with the ease of a perpetual motion machine. But most often running is a time of struggle. There are moments when I just lose the motivation to run. There are times when it’s too hot, too cold, too windy. And there have been times when personal emotional burdens have made it impossible for me to run. For me running is not mind clearing meditation, it is a time of reflection, and when those reflections have been emotionally difficult, I’ve all but stopped running, because negative thoughts can overtake me. 

Running, for me, is about challenging myself to do something I am not naturally good at. I have always been someone who can partake in sports, but I have never been someone who has excelled as an athlete. The act of forcing myself out on to the road, is the reward. Putting miles behind me, no matter my mood or the conditions, is a bonus.

There are all kinds of runners. There is a marathon runner in my neighborhood who cranks out ten mile runs with ease no matter the weather. Winter cold. Summer heat. It doesn’t matter. She runs. As a runner, I compete only against myself. I don’t even time myself anymore. I am only concerned about miles covered. The time it takes is secondary. You know you are a runner when you see a sign on the highway that says the next town is eighteen miles away and you say to yourself, “I could run that.” You know you are a runner when you complete your first half marathon and think, “I could do this twice. I could do a full marathon.” And you know you are a runner when, on rest day, you can’t resist ripping off an easy six miles.

So now it is spring. The weather is no longer an excuse. The cold is gone. The winds of March have subsided. The road awaits. The sun comes up early and sets late. There are many available hours to train each week. The next half marathon inviting me to the starting line is Columbus Day weekend. Or I could run my first marathon that day if I begin training now. That would be right on schedule if you look back at my running life. Thirty years for my first five miler, another two decades to my first half, and a decade more to my first full marathon. Whatever I decide, it is my race. No matter the distance, or the time, putting in the work is the only victory that matters.