The Running Challenge

From Thanksgiving until New Years Day, I participated in a holiday-to-holiday running challenge.  The premise: run at least a mile every day starting on Thanksgiving and ending on New Years day.  The reason: ass fat.  I asked folks on Facebook if they wanted to do it and support each other, and, long story short, I got a couple of takers.  They are the real heroes of this story.  Not really.  I am the fucking hero of this story and don’t forget it.  But having other people in the boat was great.  NOBODY IS AN ISLAND, PEOPLE, EVEN IF THEY WOULD MAKE AN AWESOME ISLAND.

Anyway, I really thought that the “challenge” part of this challenge was going to be physical.  I have never run every day, mostly because I’m generally pretty ouchy, and my tendons hate me.  I was in a freaking hard splint for 6 months and considered tendon release surgery after an injury from crocheting too hard. That is not a lie, and I don’t know how you crochet too hard, but I have done it.  I’ve had enough cortisone in my body to fully understand ‘roid rage. So, running every day had the potential for peril.  But I live dangerously.  And anyway, that wasn’t the challenge at all.

The real challenge from all of this was mental.  Finding the time to run.  Getting my ass into my running clothes. Figuring out how far at what pace I was going to run. Figuring out how I was going to entertain myself. Getting out of my running clothes.  Taking a shower.  Getting redressed and put back together.  And knowing that it was all going to happen again the next day.  And there was also the challenge of the outdoors.  I managed all but three runs outdoors, and had to account for rain, wind, snowfog (a real thing!), heat, cold, sunshine, darkness, and cars that always want to hit me.  And finding the right damn socks.  Always the socks.  Also, no one in this world loves a routine quite like I do, but I had to shoehorn runs in early in the morning, late in the evening, at lunch, after work, and once, after a glass of wine. And by glass, I mean “glass.”  You know what I mean.

But in the end, what I loved about the challenge actually was the unpredictability, and the sense that today was going to be different than yesterday. The mental challenge.  Was I going to run alone or with a friend? With the dog? In the sunshine?  In a deluge? In my nemesis, the wind? Where was I going to run? How could I run in Manhattan with only shorts and a tee shirt, 30 degree temps outside, and a barely functioning treadmill in a hot, creepy basement? (Answer: learn to love the hot, creepy basement.) What should I do when the sidewalks were flooded and the rain nonstop? (Answer: forego any electronics and run up and down the street four times like I was being chased.) How was today’s run going to feel?  What could I do to make it interesting?  Did it even need to be interesting?  Because really, did I really find it that difficult to spend the twenty minutes it took for me to run a couple of miles alone with myself, with my thoughts, with my breathing, and with the ground passing underneath my feet?    

The challenge was 37 days long.  At around day 20, I realized that I was going to make it.  That I’d already faced ouchy days, shit weather days, days when I really didn’t want to do it, and days that were logistically challenging.  And even on the days when it hadn’t been fun, it also hadn’t killed me. My friend Anita, who also completed the challenge, wrote on my wall one day, “Feeling like I just couldn’t make time for a run. But you know what, I can and I did.  And feel much better for it!!!”  In the end, that was the payoff. Realizing that – no matter what – that I could, and that I would.  And not only do I feel better for it, I think I am better for it.  But seriously, I need more socks.