I was soaked in sweat, out of breath, and I felt like puking my guts out. Day one of high school track was not going well and I was asking myself what I thought I was trying to accomplish. The answer?
I had no idea.
I joined the team for what I thought was a very important reason: my friends were doing it. I laced up my new track shoes and started running as fast as I could – trying to keep up with the track stars of our high school. When we stopped running, I was hunched over swallowing bile and they were casually sipping from their water bottles. The high school coach figured (correctly) that sprinting wasn’t my “thing” and sent me off to try hurdles.
As I rubbed my bruising elbow and scratched leg after my fourth hurdle tumble, she looked at me and said, “You’ll do the 400 meter at the next track meet.”
A few weeks later, I finished in 5th place and I, once again, felt like puking my guts out. That didn’t stop me. Friend time was way more important than feeling awful, so I continued to run. But when school ended in June, I hung up my track shoes and said, “I am so done. I am not a runner.”
And yet, in college, the sport called to me again. I spotted a bright yellow flyer tacked to the student union bulletin board. A running turkey was trailed by the words “3-mile golf course run- for charity!” With a burst of amnesia I thought, “I ran track in high school. I should run this!”
I tried to persuade several college friends to join me, but they kept asking, “Why are you doing this again?”
“I just think it will be fun.”
I drove alone into the golf course parking lot on race day reminiscing about how much “fun” I’d had in high school. I warmed up by walking across the dewy grass toward clusters of people standing in the morning fog of that mild November day. Three miles didn’t seem very far. One-hundred yards into the run and cresting my first hill, a stray thought crept into my brain, “This might have been a bad idea.“
After running down the middle of three more fairways, a crown of sweat ringed my hairline and drips continually trickled toward my left eye. I rubbed at them with my shoulder sleeve. My heart was another matter. The pumping sensation had expanded into my head, beating at the sides of my skull. My heart felt huge and my lungs felt tiny. These sensations were soon followed by another familiar feeling. I felt like puking my guts out.
How far had I run? How far did I have to go?
I had NO IDEA.
I kept on. Cresting the next hill, I could no longer see anyone in front of me. Grateful for a reason to stop a sec, I did a full 360 degree turn and saw NO ONE. Bent over with chest heaving and gut roiling, I looked toward the only way I knew – back the way I came.
I was not going to finish this race.
I turned and walked back along the side of the fairway. The starting line ghosted through the mist a lot sooner than I expected. Glancing around for my escape, I spied a shortcut to the parking lot. I ambled through some shrubs thankful for the foggy cloak hiding my walk of shame. I unlocked my car, slunked down in the driver seat and slammed the door. Did I even run 400 meters? I wasn’t sure. I sat, waiting for my nausea to pass and my heart to get out of my brain. When normal beats resumed and my nausea clicked its tongue at me, I eased my car out of the parking lot thinking, once again, “I am not a runner.”
Four years later, the phone rang.
My fiancé said, “Honey, it’s for you.”
It was my Dad. He happily announced that he just signed up to run a marathon.
“A marathon?” I asked. “How far of a run is that?”
The phone call got me thinking about running again. Seeing my Dad accomplish what I thought impossible was (and still is) incredibly inspiring.
In a race, a runner is only allowed one false start. Thankfully, in this race, I have been allowed more than a few. I’ve been running fairly consistently for nearly 20 years since that phone call and yes, I still sometimes feel like puking my guts out. But just like in high school and on that misty golf course, something always brings me back to it.
How far will I run?
How far do I have to go?
I’m still running and I have NO IDEA.
