Getting Schooled by Running

I haven’t been running lately. There – I said it. A risky confession on a running club’s blog, I know. I’m not going to dwell on what brought on this condition (or lack of conditioning, which is really more accurate) – the chronic injuries, the work schedule, the chronic injuries exacerbated by the weight gain caused by the not running... I’m just not running much these days, and though I am not happy about it, deep down I still have a confidence in myself as a runner that, ironically, comes from the running I’ve all but abandoned. You might say that my running has actually helped me come to terms with my not running.

I was not a lifelong runner; there is no scrapbook of my high school track meet clippings, nor box of race medals from my youth. I am one of those people who came to running later in life: in my thirties when the scale approached numbers I didn’t dare whisper and the Gap started running out of size numbers that fit me. In a span of two years I ran for more than 20 minutes for the first time in my life, competed in my first 5k, dropped 50 pounds, and trained for and ran my first marathon.

Indeed, starting to run as an adult has given me a useful perspective on running. Acquiring the habits of the sport and experiencing its pains and triumphs when my brain was already somewhat seasoned has given me an objectivity that lets me reflect about running in a broader way that goes way beyond blisters and proper hydration and verges on philosophical. Or maybe that’s just my navel-gazing nature, unleashed by the powerful meditative aspects of running. Either way, there are lessons I’ve learned from the ten years or so I’ve been a runner – and I definitely consider myself a runner now, though I have logged but 3 miles in the last month – that can be analogized to life in general.

Running teaches you about long-term planning, for example: how to break down a huge task, such as training for a marathon, into manageable parts. And running teaches you the necessity of patience, as you plod out the daily miles in anticipation of the big race. There are many more of these, as any runner will tell you, and some day I may succeed in compiling a list of these lessons, these running “truths”, if you will. But lately, as my Nikes gather dust and my knees creak from disuse, I have found one in particular giving me hope: the familiarity bred of practice. That priceless notion that, because I’ve done it before, I know I can handle it again. Any coach or anyone who’s trained for a race will tell you that the benefits of a training run are not just physical. Sure, doing the 18- or 20-miler builds your endurance and conditions your feet for the pounding of a full marathon, but no less important is the psychological benefit – the experience of having finished those 20 miles in training lets you know, and not just suspect, that you could do 20 miles again if you had to. (And what’s marathon but another 20-miler, topped off by a 10k?) It’s that psych-out factor that makes the practice so important, whether it’s running a marathon or giving a presentation or asking your boss for a raise. If you practice, and challenge yourself ahead of the game, you’ll know you can do it when the big moment comes around.
 

So as a year off from racing rolls into another one and the pounds continue to creep on, it’s that psych-out factor that’s going to keep me from losing all hope that I will run again. If I weighed almost 200 pounds once and managed to get down to a size 8, I can certainly drop 30 pounds now – I know that because I’ve been there before. I was a non-runner once, too, and then learned the sport and ran hundreds of miles – I know I can do that again as well. And this time around, I have the advantage of all of the truths I've picked up along the way.

I may not be a lifelong runner but I am still a runner. A non-running runner for the time being, but still a runner – with all of the experience and wisdom that entails. Running taught me that. - Uli. H.