Running Forever

Once again, John Bingham tells it like it is.

My road to running wasn't quite the same, but wasn't altogether that different either. As I mentioned in a previous post my brother and sister were runners - and pretty competitive. To steal a phrase from another runner - I "jogged" my way through cross-country.

It took me a long time to get serious. I wasn't grossed out by my brother's horror stories, instead I was fascinated. The coolest thing in the world to me was when, in his senior year, he was running in the State Finals. I raced around the course to follow his progress (it was a fairly spectator-friendly course) and was thrilled with the early part of the race. Then he seemed to disappear . . . and when I finally saw him climbing a hill he was a bit behind the pace he had set - an unusual occurrence with my brother.

Come to find out, he had been spiked as he went around a narrow curve. Yeah, spiked. As in racing spikes (lightweight shoes with SPIKES on the soles) digging into the flesh of his foot spiked. In essence, he was running with a hole in his foot - a bleeding hole.

Well, he finished the race. I would've been a baby and stopped no doubt. Be he finished and because he finished injured he helped his team place third at State's. Not a bad way to go out.

So . . . fascinated as I was with the gore of running, I didn't have the GUTS. So when it came to choosing between running and theatre, well, playing dress-up and pretend fit my personality more. So I stopped running.

Then college came. I ran sporadically to try to lose those awful "Freshman 15." In the end it was a crazy schedule and dance classes that did it.

Then I went on tour . . . and really the only way to keep in shape on tour is to run. Don't misunderstand, I still wasn't serious about it. I just ran to enjoy the weather or get out of the hotel room - to escape from or to something else. Funny, as Mr. Bingham says, I always ended up back in the same place.

Then I went to grad school and there was "no time". Or so I thought until a bad breakup with a boy (are we seeing a recurring theme in my early running?). Then I ran to purge him from my heart and head. It worked a little. Kick-boxing worked a lot.

Then finally . . . I moved to DC. I had few friends and wasn't working as an actor. I was miserable. I decided - in a wild desperate move - to join the AIDS Marathon Training Program and run my first marathon. I started running on the treadmill at the gym (YUCK - but it was February) and I was cross-training with weights and aerobics. Then I had another bad breakup and got really charged (amazing what a breakup will do to your determination!). The weather got nice and Zoe and I were inspired by the warm weather and Rock Creek Park. I met another boy - a few houses down - and he became another running partner (okay, and a little more until he moved to Belgium). I was feeling strong, meeting new people, and getting acting work. Running had changed my life and I hadn't even run the marathon yet. It wasn't until the marathon that I finally understood the GUTS my brother had possessed in High School.

So now it's five marathons later and I'm hooked. I don't always love it - in fact, I continue to have a love/hate relationship with running. Yet I always return to it. I like Mr. Bingham's likening his running shoes to giant erasers. I go back to running for similar reasons. And through this blog I am coming to terms with being a runner. You don't have to be fast to be a runner. You don't have to win races or get medals or have stories like my brother's great spiking. You just have to put one foot in front of the other in the act of running.

I've said it before and I'll say it again . . . there is no finish line . . . kinda like running forever.