It sounded like a good idea when my friend asked, ‘Want to run the Lake Tahoe Half Marathon?’
‘Sure’ I replied, ‘why not.’
Such innocence. Such good intentions abounded in that exchange, but isn’t that where we all get into trouble – when were trying to do something good. So that is where it started. That is where life began to appear through the lens of an old running shoe.
As a kid I remember playing chase with my cousins along the beach during holidays. It was hard to get into the Christmas spirit when it was 72 degrees outside, but being able to run around on the beach Christmas morning before the sun had cooked us, where our bodies were warm but our skin and breath cool, well, that was a gift. Back then running was fun, it was purely recreational, but I was good at it, and for me that made it so much more. In high school I was a runner before I was anything else and I loved the power I felt being called that. Adolescence is tough for every kid, but on the track – on the open road – oh yes, that is where I was whole. That is where everything made sense. The universe was summarized in two things: minutes and seconds. Those minutes and seconds meant I either ran fast, or I didn’t, but no matter what the outcome, I was in control. I was recruited to run in college and that’s when it became a job. I was no longer unique because there were lots of other runners, and I felt like I lost my identity. As many of us do at that time in our lives, I began to search for a new me.
Who was I?
The truth is I never got to find out. Not at that time at least. As life progresses we all become a part of something a little bigger than ourselves. It’s human nature to feel like you want to be part of a group – we are social animals. We become part of marriages, of families and communities. But in the process we lose a little bit of the individual. We lose a little bit of what makes us unique.
So there I was doing something for a friend. I mentioned the race to a few girlfriends, my mother, and another friend in Southern California. We all signed up, and agreed to meet Sunday morning at the starting line.
I started training, but as the weeks went along, I noticed something familiar. A part of me that had been buried under two tons of laundry began to emerge. Life began to present itself in minutes and second once again: 15 minutes before my husband gets home and I can run; just a few more seconds before I hit the road with the dog and the baby jogger. So there I was on the starting line. Before the gun went off. I let the heat of the sun warm the tops of my shoulders, and I took a breath and forgot about being a wife or a mother. I wanted to be an animal and I wanted to beat the shit out of the race.
I wanted to be raw and powerful once again. Where it was just me against the road, and there was no way I was going to lose.
We should all have something that we believe we are better at than anyone else, or at least those people closest to us. I have a good friend that is an exceptional cook. Her food, well frankly I don’t know how she gets it to taste so good, but I highly suspect it’s butter. I am not intimidated by her cooking skills, but I don’t aspire to be that great in the kitchen either. That’s her thing not mine. I am just grateful that when she has me over we are able to solve the world’s problems over copious amounts of delectable food and wine. I am better at running than a lot of people, but I’m not the best. But to my friends I am. When we finished the race, we all congratulated each other. We laughed and cheered each other to the finish line until everyone crossed it. We were part of a group that day, a bunch of crazy women who decided to put their bodies through hell for 13.1 miles, but we were individuals in the sense that each woman ran her own race on her own terms. That Sunday I fell back in love with running.
I fell back in love with the animal inside me, the one that keeps on going when everyone else stops.
Throughout the race I reconnected with myself, me, the individual. At the end of the race, I reconnected with my friends and family – my community. My search was over. Through the lens of old running shoes I had found myself. I am a runner, a wife, a mother and a friend.
