Evangelism
How I was Converted
To a runner’s
world, that is.
I’m no runner. I tried it once but gave up. That was back in the 1970’s when the first big aerobics movement hit the ground running. It just didn’t work for me. One of my friends persuaded me to try running. All I discovered is running may work for some people, but not for me.
I didn’t fit with the running crowd. I’ve known runners, at least from a distance. Most of them are tall gaunt figures that looked like they just escaped from a POW camp. Me? I'm built something on the order of a beer barrel. Beer barrels have a hard time running. I figured I wasn’t cut out for doing things like marathons. So I simply never ran for 30 years. Walking was just fine for me.
There was one runner I did admire quite a bit. Jim has an office next to me and I frequently whisked by him in my car as he was running. I admired his discipline. Jim never tried to talk me into running. He never made me feel guilty for not being a runner. In fact he pretty much kept his running to himself and only occasionally talked about it, and even then never in a bragging sort of way. I admired Jim, but I was never tempted to join him. I wasn’t a runner, had tried it once, and really had little interest in the lifestyle of a runner—the hard work, the pain, the discipline. I’d rather have a hot fudge sunday and a nice nap.
Then Burt entered my world. Burt teaches microbiology at the same University where I teach. I didn’t even know he was a runner. Last Spring he sat in a committee with me and asked what I was doing over the summer. I said, “Taking a few students and walking across the Rockies in Colorado.” He replied immediately, “That’s sounds neat—can I come?” Surprised, I responded, “Sure” (though I doubted he was really serious). Burt was serious. He spent all of August hiking the Colorado Trail with the students and me. We became good friends. Backpacking is quite another thing from running. Running is for people like Burt—with a daddy-long-legs type build. Backpacking is perfectly designed for beer barrels like me. In backpacking you plod along for 15 hours every day something like a turtle. Success comes from tenacity not from speed.
When you spend a month on the trail with a fellow you talk about just about everything important to you. This meant that Burt often talked about running. He would look into the distance and talk wistfully about ecstatic experiences like the “runner’s high.” He talked a lot about his 60-year-old father who was still winning races though “he’s even older than you.” I smiled. He talked of “other old guys” who were running into their 60’s and even 70’s. I caught myself occasionally wondering if I could ever finish a race like that. I dismissed the thought quickly—after all I wasn’t the running type.
What changed things was something he said after about three weeks of hiking. We were talking about running again, as we often did, and he said, “Keith, you ought to enter a marathon as a walker—you’d be a great marathon walker—I bet you could even win your age division as a walker.” I was startled. Marathon? Me? Yet, here was Burt, a lifelong runner seeing me as a potential runner—at least a walker. He even thought I’d be good at it! Amazing! I responded, “Who knows… I just might… I just might.” Burt had entered my world of backpacking and was recruiting me into his world of running.
In the final week of our month-long hike Burt closed the deal: “Want to walk the Indianapolis Marathon with me in October?” he asked. I said, “Well, maybe—if I can walk and not run it—I’m no runner, you know.” He assured me I could walk.
When we returned from Colorado I signed up. Then I started on a schedule of self-improvement. If I was going to cover 26.22 miles I’d better get in shape. I started walking long distances, first five miles, then ten, and finally 20 miles at one clip. I timed myself and started striving for a 4 MPH average, enough to make the 7 hour deadline when the marathon finish line closes down. Soon my friend Jim in the office next door discovered my plan and he signed up for the marathon too. Jim and I would compare notes each day on our training routine. He’d be doing nine minute paces and I’d be working to do 15. Still, he’d encourage me. I still didn’t feel like a runner, but I was beginning to be accepted by runners as a potential one. Burt and Jim kept encouraging me. They never scoffed at my proud reporting of feeble pace times. “Hey, you did a 20 with a 15 minute pace, that’s great!” they’d say. Of course, a 15 minute pace is not that great—for runners that is. For me it was a victory.
So, this past Saturday Jim, Burt and I met before dawn and drove to Indianapolis where we picked up our runner’s bibs and signed in. I pinned number 207 bib sheepishly on my tee shirt—after all I wasn’t really a runner and it seemed hypocritical to wear the uniform of one. There were more than a thousand runners milling before the staring line, the fastest ones up front. The atmosphere was electric. I almost felt like a real runner for a moment. It was a whole world I knew nothing about—sort of like a family. People greeted each other, talked about past races, other races, other runners, and they treated me like I was one of them.
Bang! The line lurched forward. The fastest runners took off like a shot and disappeared into the distance. It took me two minutes just to get to the staring line. Then, poof! I was walking in my first marathon. Burt said he’d walk the first half with me before finishing the race running. It was a good thing—he kept me motivated the first three hours.
At 13 miles Burt zoomed forward into the sunset and left me waddling along in his dust. Now I was mostly alone. All the half-marathoners were gone, and I huffed along speed-walking with the end-of-the-line leftovers and injured runners. A few were walkers like me, but many were walk-runners or just plain worn out runners. The course was laid out so I got to see the runners coming back toward the finish line on the final 13 mile loop. The frontrunners barely noticed me as they pounded the pavement with a glazed hungry looks in their eyes. However, the slower runners did notice me pumping my arms and wagging my tail in typical speed-walking form. They’d smile and say, “Good form” or “Nice job” or “Lookin’ good there.” These were runners… saying this. They were treating me like I was one of them. These strangers were encouraging me along. I wasn’t even running, having committed to only speed-walk the race. However, they didn’t look down on me or despise me. In fact from what I could tell they accepted me as a “developing runner.” They were developing themselves, and they saw me as a developing runner too. It felt good. After each “Good job” I’d walk a bit faster. In fact, a few times I walked right past a slow runner! Now that was a boost to my speed-walking self-esteem! My self-image was changing.
I was weary and about to drop over as I finally approached mile 25. Pretty much all the runners had already finished, had eaten their free meal and gone home—I knew that. No finishing to a roaring crowd for me. “That’s OK—I’m not a “runner” anyway” I told myself.. Then ahead of me at the 25 mile marker I saw two runners waiting. Jim and Burt! Having finished their race they had doubled back to encourage me on. I have lots of friends who would walk a mile to encourage me. But I have only a few who’d walk that mile after they’ve already run 26! Jim and Burt escorted me to the finish line. The leftover “crowd” of 25 people cheered. I got a medal. Jim and Burt slapped me a dozen high fives. I had finished. With horrible time of course, but I had finished nonetheless. I came in 562nd out of 599 finishers, pretty horrible, huh? Than again, I had finished ahead of 37 other racers, some of them real runners! Or, put still another way, of the 6 million people in Indiana last Saturday, I was among the elite top 599 who finished the Indianapolis Marathon! I was satisfied. We ate a couple dozen hot dogs and drove home happy.
This morning I’ve been looking up more marathons on the Internet. I think I’ll do another. Next time I’m thinking about notching up my pace a bit—maybe even do some running. A woman asked me yesterday, “So you are a runner now?” I thought for a moment, paused, then replied, “Yeah, I guess so… I’m becoming one.”
So what do you think?
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Other "Thinking Drafts" and writing by Keith Drury -- http://www.indwes.edu/tuesday