Back in my younger years, 12-18, I was a runner. I forget why I started, running not being a thing at the time, but once I started I was committed to it and ran 2.5 miles every night, often doing 5 miles on Friday and Saturday nights.
It was an obsession, as connected to weight watching as fitness, but I also had a very active fantasy life in those days and daydreamed so well on my runs that I was often reluctant to go back in the house and real life again.
I forget how I came to know the distance, someone must have driven around the block to measure it, but I remember 10 times around equaled 2.5 miles. Eventually I became known for my nightly run and at least one elderly gent would stand at the end of his driveway having a smoke, occasionally calling out encouragement as I ran by.
I realize now he was likely keeping an eye out, or maybe he just enjoyed the interaction. Another elderly gent watched from his living room window. He would turn out to be a guidance counsellor at the high school I eventually attended.
Anyway, all that to preface my recent attempt to restart my running obsession, which I guess came about because my blond companion, who I've never seen run, and my brother, who I've also never seen run, are both running now. And while I'm delighted for both of them, I'm also so competitive - still! - I decided if they're running, I'm running, too.
I hate it. And last night while chatting on the phone to my eldest, then my friend B, I realized I hate it because it doesn't feel right or good for me anymore - if it ever really did. Back in my youth when I ran my fuel was my imagination. It sustained me, kept me going, the fantasy of physical perfection, "I'll show you all" achievement, the ensuing celebrity and adulation of the masses.
Ah, daydream memories - Olympic gold medals in gymnastics (although I've yet to get up gracefully from a backbend, so likely never will because backbends just feel dangerous to me now, like biking around Ottawa) with Bob Dylan, Gene Hackman AND David Cassidy all fighting over perfect me featured on the cover of Seventeen magazine.
Now, though, I'm just aware of how unnatural it feels to me, how flat the slap of my feet (albeit not yet in proper running shoes) feels on pavement. My head aches a bit and I start to worry about being that person, the one who drops dead on a run. And I've got shin splints already. Also every bit of pavement in Ottawa seems to slope a bit and I feel off kilter, like I'm slowly but surely twisting my ankles.
Meanwhile, every day I've run I've passed a couple of elderly (more elderly than me!) gents out walking, verrry carefully, having had what I'm guessing was a serious health scare, and I feel like I'm doing the same, just faster and minus the serious health scare, like I'm lording my luck over them.
My hips ache, too. The worst of old ladyisms, the aching hips. Plus there's no way in hell I'm going to keep this up once there's even a hint of ice. Yeah, yeah, I could get cleats, but if/when I get cleats it'll be for walking to the grocery store, thank you very much. I'm still dealing with last year's broken wrist. (Oh and those skates are going to the Sally Ann because there's no way in hell I'm going skating after at least 30 years of not skating - even on that godforsaken canal we pressure each other to "enjoy" every freeze/thaw winter we could skate on our sidewalks - if we had them.)
I even emailed a book club friend and marathoner for advice on how to do this running thing, very mature for me, seeking advice from someone I know would have sought her own advice on the subject, and I followed it for two whole runs already. (With regard to winter running she advised the cleats, or, better yet - a treadmill at a gym or community centre, adding "but there's a reason we call them dreadmills".)
Then yesterday, as I was doing the walk back from my run/walk (run for a bit, walk for a bit, building up to running a full 20 minutes, as per my friend's advice - although I don't even own a watch so...) I ran into a woman whose new dog doesn't like Bernie (her old dog put up with him like the Queen with EVERYBODY, so our chats are shorter now when we cross paths) and she asked where Bernie was. So I told her what was going on (after telling her about Bernie performing surgery on himself, which I'll blog about in my next post) and she talked about how much she hated running.
"But I was heavy set when I was young, just like I am now. I'd do it, because we had to, and the other kids made fun of me because I took my time and would always be last. 'Haha it's because you're fat!' And I'd say 'No it's because I pace myself. I don't want to end up barfing in a corner like you because I ran too fast.' I was lucky because I never took it to heart. I liked table tennis, volleyball. And I've always walked. Love walking. And rowing on Dow's Lake. I used to walk there from our house and row for hours."
Listening to her I thought to myself, "What the hell am I doing? Am I so competitive - still - I'm going to ruin every day of my remaining life by shoving an obligatory run I hate doing into it? I don't even particularly like walking anymore because I've turned it into fast walking around our neighbourhood (which I don't like, either, because it's neither urban nor suburban - just ugly) for added exercise."
But Bernie's slowed down quite a bit in the last year and the walk is now entirely for him while we work on being Zen about it, or, as I say, go limp and just let it happen, or not, but stop arguing with an old dog - you're not on Twitter, you're supposed to be enjoying real life outdoors, so it's not exercise anymore, hence the fast walking addition.
Anyway, as I walked home I thought about the community centre and how it's within a decent walking distance and how I took drawing lessons there and how I'd like to take knitting lessons if they're on offer. Oh and how I took a yoga class, a few of them, that I really liked because the instructor was adamant about not doing or holding poses that hurt or cause stress in a way a person of my age knows is bad as opposed to just harder than what we're used to and we'll get there. Eventually. No rush. No rush at all.
Although there was a man who could do all the poses, including standing on one leg with his eyes closed for the duration of the pose. Super nice and helpful, though, including pointing out he'd noticed I was consistently doing a particular pose backwards and would eventually end up hurting myself, causing the instructor to gasp in alarm, come over to my mat, and carefully manipulate my arms and legs into the correct position because I have trouble translating from Yoga to English.
Long story short, I'm quitting running, not even giving it the old college try. Forget the hunt for proper running shoes, it's over. Done. I hate it and that's all there is to it.
Also I no longer have the eating disorder that more likely than not prompted my running obsession in the first place, nor can I daydream my way through it - life being good enough as it is, I guess, so lucky me.
