Still Running

About the furthest I'd ever run before going to college was 2 miles and I if you saw it, you'd probably not have called it running.  In high school gym class we had to do the Cooper Run, which at the time was a mile and half run  - 6 laps around the perimeter of a playing field. We were graded by how fast we ran.  I think I averaged a C+.  I wasn't much faster than the Future Farmers of America group who trudged around in the field in work boots and jeans.  (The web tells me that now the Cooper Run Test sees how far one can run in 12 minutes.)

I lacked the coordination to play competitive sports like basketball, baseball, or soccer.  As a result, I had stopped playing organized sports by the time I got to high school.  (The exception being the golf team for which I never played a single match.)  But when I went off to college I vowed to reinvent myself.  I exchanged my oft broken glasses for contact lenses and joined the crew team.  It was during my first week at UMass Amherst as I was walking near the student union that I saw the eight person crew shell staged as a recruiting tool.  They were looking for tall and athletic looking people to fill the novice ranks.  I wasn't athletic, but I was tall and thin and that was enough for them to ask me to come to an informational meeting.

There were at least a hundred young men who came to that first meeting.  I looked around the room and was convinced I was the weakest one in the room.  I was surrounded by high school varsity athletes who were a cut below collegiate skill levels in their respective sports.  Most of them had been playing organized sports for years.  The coaches outlined the program, the rigorous training schedule, and the early morning workouts.  The most important thing I heard was that there would be no cuts.   As long as I came to every practice and gave it my all, I'd be on the team (and hopefully racing in a shell one day).

When I went to my first crew practice, in the fall of 1987, there were already less young men than at the informational meeting.  My odds to make a boat had improved and all I'd done was shown up!  We were gathered in the large lobby area of Totman Gymnasium.  If I'd known that we were going to run four miles that day, I don't know that I would have shown up myself.  With little fanfare, the 60 or so of us rumbled out the lobby doors and and turned left up a steep hill leading past dormitories, the university horse barns and off campus.  By the time we reached the top of the hill, I was already toward the rear, firmly ensconced with the slower runners.  At the top of the hill we turned left again and it led down a straight, steady decline.  Far, far ahead, I could just barely see the front runners.  By the halfway point, I was just one of a half dozen runners within view. I had to frequently walk to catch my breath.  My chest burned and my legs felt like lead.  As I made the last turn back toward the gymnasium, I was ahead of just one other runner.  By the time I re-entered the gymnasium lobby, the entire team - long done with the run and soon headed to the showers - seemed to gawk at my belated appearance.

I spent much of that fall trying to catch up.  But I never stopped coming to practice and I never stopped trying.  Steadily, month by month, I grew more fit.  By late fall, I could run that four mile loop without stopping and by the following spring, I could run as much as six miles.  I never became fast, but I did become conditioned.  By my senior year, I was rowing in the first varsity boat.  We won the New England Rowing Championships and finished a heartbreaking fourth in our division's national final at the Dad Vail's.

New England MV8 Grand Final 1991

Order	Entry	Result
1	UMass-Amh	5:52.40
2	Wesleyan	5:56.76
3	USCGA	5:57.10
4	UNH	5:58.54
5	Conn Col	5:58.65
6	Holy Cross	6:05.67

I stopped rowing after college, but didn't want to forego fitness.  Running seemed the easiest way for me to stay healthy.  On and off for the next 13 years, I ran.  I'd run for several months, but then get lazy or injured and take as many months off.  During the time off I'd eat poorly, drink, and generally gain 10 or 15 pounds.  I am six foot three inches and slender enough that I can disguise a dozen pounds.  Or so I thought.  Whenever I began to run again and lose those pounds, I'd be surprised by comments from people who hadn't seen me recently.  "Have you lost some weight?" they'd inquire.  "I suppose," I'd demur.  This was the running pendulum as it swung in my life from the summer of 1991 until 2004.  I'd run for a season, stop, get lazy, put on a few pounds, get inspired to exercise and I'd repeat the cycle.  Fit, unfit.  Flabby, lean.  Able to run for miles, able to make a run to the pizza parlor.

Not long after Linda and I moved back to New England in 2004, I joined the North Shore Striders running club.  By then I was well acutely aware of my tendency to run in stints.   With high cholesterol and a directive to exercise regularly, I thought that joining a club would help get me on the roads and stay there.  I was nervous about joining a club of runners given that I wasn't in the best of shape.  The whole idea of ME joining a RUNNING club seemed daunting so before even daring to join the club on runs, I began to run on my own.  I signed up for a couple races and was just getting myself in decent enough shape to feel comfortable running with strangers (strange runners?).  But before I could, I strained my right Achilles tendon and didn't run for the next 6 months.  Several months after my tendon had healed, my laziness beginning to eat at my conscience, I joined the Striders for their regular Sunday run from the Anchor Restaurant in Beverly.

There were just a couple of people there that day, but each Sunday I returned and as the weeks passed, I began to meet more and more Striders.  Before long I was the guy greeting new club members.  I ran many races with the Striders in 2006 and into 2007 until Max arrived.  I wasn't prepared for how having baby would change my running habits and soon I was completely out of shape and paralyzingly afraid of the pain of getting back in shape.  My laziness festered for  almost the entire year.

I knew that I couldn't not exercise and I understood that realistically running was the only activity that was simple, straightforward, and easy enough for me to attempt.  Over a Christmas visit to my sister's in Texas, I went for a run.  I then went for couple more runs on that trip.  When we got back to Massachusetts, I began to run at three days a week.  I was heartened by the speed with which I was getting back into shape.  Make no mistake, I wasn't yet in shape.  I didn't run swiftly, but I was soon able to run continuously for 30 minutes.  Then 40 minutes.  Then an hour.  This was all well and good, but I knew that I needed a race to inspire me, to keep me running.

Through the North Shore Striders I learned about the United States Track and Field's New England Grand Prix, a series of 7 races beginning in February and finishing in October.  Perfect, I thought.  I decided to attempt to complete the series, to be what they call an Iron Runner.  This way, I thought, I'd be committed to running the whole year.  The first race was a 10 mile race in Amherst, MA.  Though I was not yet really in shape to race 10 miles, I went anyway, slogging my way through the cold, wet rain.
I huffed and puffed my way through the New Bedford Half Marathon in March. I felt stronger by the time I ran the Rotary 12K in New Hampshire in May.  By June when I ran the Rhody 5K I felt like I was in good shape.  I eased my way through the Ollie 5 Miler and the Lone Gull 10K in September.  The culmination of the series was the Baystate Marathon, about which I wrote in October.

Though I moved from the North Shore in September I still belong to my running club.  This past weekend I represented The North Shore Striders in the Mill Cities Relay, a 28 mile team race from Nashua, NH to Lawrence MA along the Merrimack River.  Later this month, the 27th, will mark one full year of regular running, the most consistent and productive year of running of my almost 40 years. And barring injury, I'll continue running.  The Striders have seen fit to award me one of the club's qualifying time exempt numbers for the 114th running of the Boston Marathon.

Below is a picture of me and fellow Strider, Annajean, sporting our Iron Runner jackets, which we were awarded after the Baystate Marathon for completing all 7 races in the series.