More specifically, what sparked my return to running was my best friend from graduate school. After facing similar post-partum body issues (along with a startling dash of PPD), she talked me into signing up for a 5K with her. We were several years out of grad school by then, each plodding along in the plastic-coated business world that felt foreign to us, two women who’d spent some of our most inspiring years settling into the pea-green couch in our university’s English department, discussing Shakespeare and logical fallacies. We were submerged in work and baby fog, busy, surrounded by new faces and complex obligations. Living a half an hour from each other, we seemed to find less and less time and reason to see one another. Until running. Suddenly we had everything to talk about again – techniques, training tips, protein goals – and all the other stuff that we love so much in each other just folded right back in. I run because it’s too easy to let good friends slip away.
Actually, there are many reasons a person can’t run. “Running is free” is a common misconception. Sure, it’s free in the most basic sense. I don’t need to pay the act of running a monthly fee the way I would a gym. Yet... do you know that decent running shoes cost over $100? Do you know that you need to replace them often or your shins and knees and back will suffer splintering pain from the constant pounding? Do you know that it costs around $90 to enter a half marathon? That every 5K is another 20 or 30 bucks? But, running costs more than that, too. It costs the childfree, work-free hours and hours and hours you need to spend training. For the first decade of my adulthood, I worked two jobs, six days a week, trundling ever-exhausted through a lower middle class life that was always too tough to manage but not dire enough for me to seek help. The thought of having two hours free on a Saturday to log 10 miles was laughable. Saturdays were reserved for eyeliner and aching feet, for pouring draught beers for wrinkly regulars at a local crab shack. Running, in ways that I know intimately, is a luxury. I run to remind myself how hard I have worked to afford self-care.
I run because I’m a mom, and sometimes I want my kids to sink further and further away from me as I sprint, full-speed, into the silence of my own private mediation.
I run because I'm a mom, and I want my children to understand that wellness is an active commitment, and health isn't just the luck of the draw. I want them to know that I do it, not always because I want to, but because my well-being depends on it. Whether they pick up running or cycling or yoga or boxing, I want them to make moving their bodies a part of their lives.
I run because it feels really goddamn good to be outside. On weekdays, I spend two stale hours in the car and nine temperature-controlled hours sitting at a desk and staring at a screen. My body craves sunlight on my brow, a whipping breeze across the back of my neck, wildflowers, train tracks, sweltering pavement, fire maples, the abrupt barking of a dog pissed off by my passing. I run because I am a part of the natural world and my body needs to be reminded of that.