He Says, "Running is Supposed to Make You Less Crazy"

I think A LOT while I am running (what else is there to do), but my brain tends to think about people I love, people I miss, people who confuse me. I end up thinking about my closest friends and family members while I run. And I also get a little paranoid while I am running sometimes, for reasons that I don’t understand.

Last weekend I was running by myself outside, and I chose a less-traveled, more hilly path than I normally would. The path goes down to a creekbed and over a bridge, and then back up the creekbed. There was a 50-ish man who passed me going the other way, and of course for some reason my paranoia struck and I found myself thinking about all of the ways I could get away from him should he come after me. OK, yes, that’s paranoid. I know this. If anyone ever came after me, my body would take over and do the right thing. So I shouldn’t be paranoid. But then, when I turned around, I caught up to him almost, because he was standing on the other side of the bridge, sort of jogging back and forth in a circle. He ran a bit, saw that I had crossed the bridge, I started to walk, and then he took off and I never saw him after that. I thought it was weird, but I went about finishing my run and minding my own business.

I was convinced, upon returning, that this man was a vision. He sort-of looked like my dad, so I got worried that something had happened to my dad. My dad and I ran together at the Blackwell Forest Preserve in DuPage County the entire summer before my Sophomore year in college (I was training to enter Navy ROTC with Marine Corps Option in the Fall … that’s another story).  Some of my fondest memories of time with my dad are the days when he and I would slog it out on the paths in the summer heat. I digress. I said to my husband when I came back home that maybe the man was an apparition and was there protecting me, making sure I made it over the bridge safely because there was some threat I didn’t see near the bridge - like a rabid deer or a coyote. My husband said, “You’re supposed to come back from running less crazy.” And then I told him about the small, sharp stick that I sometimes carried in my hand when I ran  last summer…for goodness sake I run on forest preserve land, there could be rabid raccoons , right? (Click the link to listen to “ghost stories” from This American Life radio series - Part I has the episode about the raccoon. It is not to be missed - actually, all of them are really good if you’ve got the time. Unfortunately I think you have to pay the .95 to download it to hear the whole thing. You won’t be sorry!)

So today, more running crazy. Except in a good way. My prescribed workout today was run 3 miles - I decided to interpret that as “Run 5K” because I know of a stretch of path that equals 5k. 5k=3.1 miles. I actually covered 3.2 miles because the stretch I chose is about 1.6 each direction. I walked briskly to the path as my warm-up, which is exactly 1/2 mile distance. I started to run, and really only made it 1/4 mile or a little more before I had to stop and stretch, and my legs were freaking out. I decided to walk, because I don’t want to get injured and if my body is too tired from ramping up distance too quickly, then I just needed to walk to cover the distance. So I walked a mile, and then I reached the landmark that was .3 miles from my half-way point. I said, OK, now run, and just see how far you can get comfortably with your legs. Listen to your body and just run. I wasn’t expecting what happened next.

And I’LL BE DAMNED if I didn’t run the .3 miles remaining to the half-way point and then I turned around and ran the ENTIRE 1.6 miles back to my starting point. HOT DAMN I ran 1.9  miles straight of my 5K run today!!!!!

At some point after I turned around and was heading back, the endorphins kicked in BIG TIME. This is where I get really emotional while I am running, and the bliss is hard to describe. I had visions of running track with my little sister, and then I started to cry because I miss her so much. I told her it was OK, and I said it out loud, and the vision passed and I kept going. Then, I got to a point where I realized I had been running comfortably for well over a mile, and then I started to smile and I even screeched out loud a couple of times as I realized that I would be able to reach my goal for the day without stopping again. I was THRILLED, absolutely thrilled.

This is the benefit of running outside, by yourself. Because you can really let your body express itself and you don’t have to worry about freaking out the people next to you on the treadmill, as you alternate from crying to laughing out loud with happiness because you are having a runner’s high.