The Law of Running

Sometimes the run shows us just how human we really are.

The sound of my alarm startles me awake at 5:30 a.m. I’m confused.  What day is it? Ah, yes, it’s Sunday.  Today is my last 22-miler before the 2015 Boston Marathon.  But I don’t want to get out from under the covers.  I want to return to the dream where I am at a formal celebration – maybe a wedding or anniversary – on the beach with all my closest friends. For a change, this was a peaceful and hopeful dream.  I huff, and with my eyes still closed, I throw the covers off myself and get up.

It’s cold outside on my porch as I set my watch and cue my music playlist, thinking how I’ve yet to get used to the Denver climate that boasts 40-degree temperature swings between morning and noon.  As I head out of my dark neighborhood, I’m unusually out of breath and already feeling a nagging tightness gripping my right calf.  For the first time in this training program, I think seriously about turning around and going back to bed.  But, I remind myself as I’ve done on countless occasions, that you should never judge the quality of your entire run by the quality of the first mile.

But then, in a stream of consciousness, the image of my 12-year-old-self struggling to run her first mile becomes the frozen frame in the filmstrip of my mind.  I started running in seventh grade because my father announced at the dinner table, as I was reaching for a second helping of potatoes, that I was getting fat. “You need to start running if you’re going to eat like that.” I was embarrassed and ashamed.  With one swift, precisely-positioned comment, the carnage was my body image bleeding on the dining room floor – never to be resurrected.

But, you see, my father knew who he was talking to.  He was talking to the child who cared.  It gave him the ultimate satisfaction to know that he could wield his words like a weapon and someone would end up wounded.  I was the child who got wounded.  I took everything he said to heart because I really cared about him.  Even though his words would burrow into me like a parasite and slowly extract a little bit of life each day, I still cared about him and wanted to please him.  He was my father.

To me, my father represented the law and I was the good law-keeper.  In my distorted reality, I felt like I could control the chaos if I followed the rules.  If I followed the rules, no one would get hurt, punished, or raged against.  If I kept the law, surely my father would see that I was devoted and, we all know, it is the devoted that reap the rewards. But, the only reward I wanted was his love – a kind word, a knowing smile, a memory not laced in anger.  So, if he thought I was getting fat and needed to run to lose weight then, by God, I was going to run.

I was a terrible runner.  I would immediately get out of breath, my sides would cramp, and I had an uncontrollable monkey mind.  I couldn’t focus on anything except the fact that I was a terrible runner, that I was fat, that I was full of excuses, that I was awkward, that I was embarrassing.  Inevitably, I would stop after only a few blocks, start crying, hyperventilate, and walk home in shame realizing that I was all of these things and would never live up to my father’s expectations.  I would do this every day.  Until one day, I didn’t.  I realized that I had run the entire mile and didn’t stop.  For the first time ever, I felt like I was someone else – someone strong and powerful and competent.

Running had calmed my monkey mind and, for one blissful moment, I had uncovered some inner peace.  Although it would take me decades to realize that nothing would ever satisfy the lawman – for his law could not be fulfilled regardless of effort, determination, or commitment – I did feel some relief that day.  The seed had been sown.  I found something that seemed to love me back.  In time, I realized that although I started running to satisfy my father’s law, it was something else that created my devotion to running – some indescribable divine love.

My childhood memories are often triggered on these long runs and sometimes the weightiness of them is too much to bear.  So at mile 20, I stop.  I just stop right there on the side of the road with the cars flying past me. My legs feel like cement blocks and I’m extremely dehydrated.  I’ve already stopped twice before this and I’m disgusted with myself.  Hunched over and breathing hard, the law rushes back and the lawman’s voice echoes through my head, “Runners need to have guts.  You are no one if you cannot muscle through this. You were never cut out for this.”  My head is filled with doubt and disgrace, but I mutter, “Your words have no power.  They have no power. They have no power,” and then my words trail off and I look up.

Tears of frustration are beginning to well, but I don’t cry.  Instead, I gaze out over the horizon and breathe deeply as the sun’s rays dance over my face.  Out loud I say, “Dear God, I am so happy You are here.  Oh how glorious this truth is: I am an incredibly imperfect person that You love perfectly.  Thank you for being by my side and for never leaving. I’m so glad I never have to run alone.”

The last two miles are slow and a bit painful – but I feel lighter and genuinely blessed.  With a feeling of mild accomplishment, I walk through my front door where I am greeted with two of the cutest smiles from my own 12-year olds who are excitedly asking, “So, mom, how’d it go?”  I hobble over and hug each of them – big sweaty hugs – and I am quickly reminded of my roadside revelation at mile 20.  As we chatter away about the run and I look into the eyes of these precious gifts, I realize that “the law of running” is simply a metaphor of life.  It is love, not law, that changes hearts.  Love begets love.  Thanks be to God.