My Reason for Running

          “When the sweet showers of April have pierced/The drought of March… Then people long to go on pilgrimages…”  And so the ritual of a religious pilgrimage was described by the father of English poetry in his ever so famous Canterbury Tales. Well I have my own ritual that, while not religious, is certainly important to me and, at times, even keeps me grounded in my faith. When it’s winter, as it is now, I only go on a run two or three times a week but running is a ritual for me. When spring, summer and fall are here my runs get longer and more frequent because it’s light and the days are longer. This ritual is important to me because it keeps me in shape, it gives me time to think, and it lifts my mood as a big part of my social existence.

            Running allows me to make social connections. I have been running since I was a kid and I have made friends who are also runners. Just like the pilgrims in Chaucer’s Tales, I get to tell my running friends stories. People know me as a runner. I have also coached young runners for the past 33 years in track and cross country. I have never been the sit-on-the-sidelines, do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do coach, but the guy that runs with the kids. Even now, in my fifties, I still run with them (okay, maybe behind them) and they know that I know about running from experience. Telling stories is one of my many coaching techniques. Many of the people I have coached have gone on to run in college and many more have become the day to day runners that enter fun runs and keep the running community alive. The sport of cross country in Idaho has grown exponentially since I started a cross country team here in Potlatch. I know those coaches. I have mentored many of those coaches. Some of those coaches were running in school when I started coaching. Running keeps those connections across the generations alive for me. Running connects me to other people who understand perseverance, who understand the need to move, who understand meditation in motion.

          Seven years ago, when I was 48, I was picking up my running intensity in the spring, thinking about running Bloomsday, the premiere social running event of the Inland Northwest. I noticed that when my heart rate increased my chest started aching. To say it hurt would be wrong, but because it was in my chest, I got a little scared and I finally checked myself into the emergency room at Pullman Memorial Hospital. They rushed me Sacred Heart in Spokane and the next day I had robotic heart bypass surgery. I didn’t have a heart attack so no great damage was done. In fact, I would say it is fair to say that running saved my life. I did not know that I suffer from coronary artery disease at the time but because of that incident I found out and I changed my eating habits. The very act of running lead me to the hospital. The very act of running changed my diet. The very act of running let me know I needed to get something fixed. Running has always kept me healthy.

           But everything is not always perfect about running because I thought since it kept my weight down I could basically eat whatever I wanted. Because of running I largely ignored the earlier signs of heart disease, including the fact that I had actually had a mild heart attack a year earlier. I am human so like everyone I do lose sight of balance. Just because one exercises does not mean one can eat whatever they want, whenever they want. So this one needs to remember that and running helps with that.

            Besides keeping me in shape, aware of my body and healthy, running also gives me time to think. The world gets pretty hectic for a teacher. English teachers have these crazy schedules where we are loaded down with grading galore and forced into getting the equivalent of four crappy novels read over one weekend so that we can complete report cards. We are bombarded with requests to write letters of recommendation at the same time (because of scheduling done by outside forces, not the students) and then we still have the demands of our family which can be crazy. And then we somehow, usually miraculously, accomplish all that work with the help of sleeplessness and coffee and disgruntled spouses. And then we are finished. And then we don’t know what to do with ourselves, so we plan these amazing lessons (or so we like to think). As I previously noted, I would have long since expired from heart disease if I didn’t get out and run.

            Running allows me the time to stop viewing my students and their shoddy work as monsters. I can actually fester over them for a mile or so, get a small sweat worked up and then they become human beings again and I pace my heart into a steady beat. I become a choir master with all the voices of those young people and I actually begin to love them. They sound so beautiful and I imagine how to tweak those little squawks into harmonious being. Then I actually want to write those letters of recommendation and extol the virtues of my students.

            Running allows me time to get myself physically tired so that no matter how much coffee (and I dearly love coffee) I drink, I will still sleep. In my restful sleep I am able to dream of wading in Mumbles Bay off the coast of Swansea, Wales. Dylan Thomas recites poetry to me in my head (and strangely enough his accent is more conversational than deep booming British dry). And I “Do not go gentle into that good night,” but “Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”  Every step I take dissipates frustration, anger and hypertension. I am able to smell the roses, syringa, lilacs and whatever other flower grows along the way. I am able to look to the hills, and recognize that my strength comes from the Lord. (Psalm 121)  I am able to pray. I am able to forget the stress of inadequate papers. I am able to forget the fact that I am all caught up and need to make phenomenal lesson plans. I can just run and feel the wind in my face.

            The ritual of running, lacing up those shoes, stepping into the wind and moving is important to me because it lets me know I am alive. It helps me be alive. It helps me connect with other people who are alive. And it lets me share those stories, those successes. It keeps me balanced. Sometimes I wonder if running isn’t life itself.