Why I Run?

So as I wind on down the road towards graduation and the end of my collegiate running career. A lot of thoughts have crossed through my crowded mind. One recently that has, and I am sure one question that has been addressed by many is, Why do I run? Why do we do anything? Is it by choice? Is it by free will? There are a lot of reasons behind why we do certain things. Some of them are more prevalent than others. Some reveal themselves at different times and in different manners. Sometimes you do not know even why you did something to begin with. Sometimes you just get caught up in the moment and before you know it you are acting upon an action.

The question of why do I run or why did I choose running as a sport I wished to pursue competitively. Probably starts like most things, from humble beginnings. I can take this way back to the days and months that I first started walking. You know back in the olden days, the 80's. I do not really remember the 80's, all I know of is the music rocked, the hair was long, and people wore weird looking glasses. I have been told and this story has been confirmed to me that in order to get me to go to sleep at night my uncle, who was babysitting me at the time, would get me to run laps inside the house in the hope that I fould fall asleep. Needless to say, despite the compensation (rumored to be about 25 cents), this tactic rarely worked. Unknown to him, that my endurance was in top form even from a young age. God blessed me with a little something even from the beginning. From running inside the living room to running local fun runs in town or at the elementary schools. I would always do pretty well for my age group, finishing in the top 2-3 in most races. It was just for the pure fun of it I guess. There was no real training involved, other than playing baseball or soccer year round. This probably helped the fitness levels a little bit. My seventh grade year, way back in the spring of 2000, I decided to try out for the track team and to my surprise I did really well as I was one of the top finishers in the 2 mile and 1 mile runs. It was surprising because I had tried and failed to make the teams in football or basketball. It was cool to belong to something meaningful. I ran really well that year, had a mile time somewhere under 5:30, and a 2 mile of 11:38. I won my first races that year in the two mile. It was becoming something that I wanted to do long term and was pretty successful at. My 8th grade year we got some new kids in who were better than I was at the 2 mile. So I retired from that event, never to run that event in track until college. I dropped down to the 800 and ran 2:20 that year as well as running in the low 5:20s for the mile. Cross country was a new and different experience for me, beginning in the summer of 2001. It was a different pain and a different kind of training than anything I had ever done in middle school. Running for 45-50 minutes a day 6 days a week, are you kidding me? What is this? Made a lot of friends during my four years of running. Some I still keep in touch with, others not as much. Nearly all of my friends in high school were on the cross country. It is a unique bond that all of us runners shared together. It is not a sport you do to get the recognition. There are countless amounts of miles you have to put in to be good in this sport. While talent does reveal itself, it usually takes a few miles for that talent to be evident. With running comes a lot of alone time. There is not always someone to go out on a run with, so you have to be willing to put in the miles by yourself. It takes a certain amount of dedication to see the long-term reason behind why you are going to go out for an 80 minute run when the longest amount of time you will do in race is 36 minutes or so. It is all about building that base so you can become stronger and do those workouts at the times you could not do before. I have learned so much about the sport from when I began it 10 years ago. The different ways to approach training. What terms like tempo, fartlek, intervals, really mean and what paces you should be running them at. Learning the meaning behind every workout and what purpose they serve. The amount of mileage you should be doing and the pace that your runs should be at. That so much of running is just based off how you feel. You do not need to go fast on every run, there is a time and a place to go fast. Learning how to approach races from a mental approach is one thing that took a long time for me to completely understand. How much pain and suffering do I want to put myself through on this day? In running there is nowhere to hide, your fitness level and your toughness is evident every time you step out on the course or the track. It is a true individual sport. You do it to see how far your talents will reach and what your potential is. If you do well you get the credit and vice versa. It is a true measure of your competitiveness and your will to push yourself to your limits. I guess these are the reasons I chose to pursue running. There was a many a time I considered quitting running or asked myself why am I out here doing this run? I could be out doing something else. I could be sleeping. I could be having a good ole time doing anything else but this. This sport takes a lot of sacrifice. It has to be something you are willing to do if you want to do well. You do not go out on a Saturday night as much. You have to go to bed at a reasonable time. You have to watch what you eat. You have to do other stuff other than running to be good such as weight room work or core workouts or pool workouts. It is something that I accepted and just realized that that was the deal I got myself into when I accepted this as my part time job in college. I will never forget all of the van rides and places I got to visit over all of my years of running. Being able to run at places such as Charleston, SC, UNC-Chapel Hill, Duke, to name a few.

These are the experiences I will not soon forget. The things said and done on these trips would not be considered appropriate for most people out there, but it is normal for us. This is why I ran. For the fun of it, for all of the laughs, for all of the good times, and for all of the struggles. It has taught me dedication, accountability, resilience, and most of all gave me a life long activity in which to do for the rest of my life. Thank you running for all of the blessings you have gave me even if it took some soul searching to realize that in the end.

M