My Running Life

I am a runner.  I am a lot of other things, but being a runner is one of those core things about who I am.  Sometime around the second half of my collegiate running career, I began to experience running injuries for the first time ever.  I had always been quite miraculously injury-free, despite years and years of hard, year-round running on legs given little recovery time ever.  First it was a pesky tendon around my knee bugging me, but that subsided and was soon replaced with some shin issues that became quite debilitating.  The trainers at Hanover tried a lot of things, said it wasn't shin splints, played with medial tibial stress syndrome for a bit, but were ultimately inconclusive.  I've always been hard-headed when it comes to running, so I was very reluctant to ever take more than a couple days off.  They understood, and tried their best to help me train through, but suggested that at the end of Track season my senior year, I take a good six or eight or even twelve months off to allow them to heal.  It's been a strange past year for me not running.  When something has been a major part of your life for so long, it's hard--emotionally, mentally, and physically--to feel normal without it.  So now, as I am just past that suggested year of rest (though still experiencing some pain during everyday activities on occasion) and trying to figure out how to best pick that part of my life back up, let me use this entry as a reflection on how I got here.

I attended a very small, rural elementary school in central(ish) Indiana through fourth grade.  Once a year, we had the "Mile Run."  All the students would run (or sometimes walk) two laps around our school's trail, which looped around the playgrounds and baseball/softball fields.  What's funny about me becoming a runner is how unlikely it would have seemed at that age.  The first few years of elementary, my parents wrote a note requesting that I be a walker, because I would overheat easily and start coughing a lot.  I always ran and played regularly at home and at recess, but I don't remember why this was different.  Luckily though, by third grade, I was allowed to run for real! I don't remember how that year went beyond that I was pleased, and then in fourth grade I placed second in the whole grade (2 classes), being beat only by one of the boys.  Oh, man, did I feel excellent about that.  So began the development of my identity as a runner.

The summer before fifth grade, we moved to where we live now in central southern Indiana.  It wasn't until the first few days of seventh grade that I officially became a runner--Cross Country specifically.  PE had always been easy for me, and I had already been active in softball and basketball for years.  Apparently even my classmates and teachers took notice though, and two of the boys in homeroom, assisted by our English teacher, took a few days convincing me to join the team.  I was admittedly tough to convince though.  I was always pretty quiet and shy, so any new situation was cause for a few nerves.  Besides, I didn't know anything about Cross Country other than that they had really cool t-shirts, who was on it, and that they ran.  Still, about two weeks into practices, with no training at all, I joined.....on a hill and strength day.  I soon learned what that meant:  about 7 laps up and down the hill in front of the school coined "Big Bertha," some speed work, wall jumps, speed work on the short hill behind the gym up to the baseball field...et cetera.  I thought I was going to die that afternoon, and can still remember weakly standing discouraged next to my mom cooking dinner in the kitchen that night saying that I wanted to quit, that I just couldn't do it.  She wouldn't let me not finish something I had started, I probably cried, and then I went again the next day.  I ran that season in high-top basketball shoes, which made my legs hurt (surprise), joined Track as well the next year, and barely took a day off for 10 years after.

Louisville Courier Journal

High school was where I became a good runner.  I was decent and improved a lot my freshman year, and made it to Cross Country Semi-State (Sectional-->Regional -->Semi-state-->State progression).  My dad framed an interview from our local paper for me in which they asked what my hopes were for Semi-State.  I replied that I was definitely glad to be there, but that I was also going to try my best to move on.  I didn't really know what to expect and really planned on going with whatever strategy my coach and I talked about and also just running.  My experienced coach commented further down that I might still be a year away from nudging that, but that I was doing well.  I ended up surprising everyone though with a good 17th place finish (top 15 advance), and later moved directly into sophomore summer Cross Country running from freshman 1600 m and 3200 m Track Regionals.

That summer was pivotal.  I worked hard with my coach and became strong and fast with super endurance.  My times dropped fairly dramatically, I moved into two-a-day practices, purchased race spikes, and ran with it.  I was winning lots of races, running times ever closer to breaking that 15-minute mark, and surprising everyone sometimes.  I just knew that I was working hard, running, and that I wanted it.  That year I won the Sectional title, placed 3rd at Semi-State with a personal best time of 14:55 on the 4k course, and a bit short of my top 25 goal at State with a 37th place finish on an excellent soggy course in Bloomington, IN.  I was fast, and strong, and ran longer warm-ups and cool-downs than races on race day.  I never took it easy, and I never suffered from it more than I should have.  60 mile weeks during race season were no big deal.  It was wonderful.  In Track, I had a really good season, but just missed progressing to State after Regionals in the 1600 meter and 3200 meter races.  I was crushed, but came back on Monday to begin training for my junior Cross Country season.  That regular season went really well with more wins at invitationals and such, another Sectional title, a decent regional finish, and a bad race at Semi-State that put me just out of advancement to State.  Again, crushing.  Track season after that was okay, and I had about my third best Cross Country and Track seasons my senior year, but I was disappointed.  I had gone from a possible D1 college athletic scholarship contender to more of a "let's see what happens" outlook.  I had pretty much a 4.0 academically, so I was fine, but I still didn't like it.  I felt like a serious has-been and felt guilty, though I knew I was still doing what I could.

Then came the time to make a decision about college.  I had great academic funding help everywhere (though some of course better than others) and two decent D2 athletic offers.  It was a really hard decision, and in the end it came down to athletic/academic D2 at Bellarmine or equal but purely academic D3 at Hanover.  I felt like I was letting myself down after all the work I had done athletically over the years if I didn't go to college on partial athletic scholarship, but ultimately knew that I liked Hanover better.  So I went, and I don't regret it.

I'm #111 in the blue uniform

Hanover not only put me in an excellent academic environment, but also gave me one thing I'd never really had for a whole season at my low student involvement high school:  a complete team.  It wasn't just a team in numbers either.  We were all best friends.  We got along so well, pushed each other through training, hung out outside of practices and meets, and are still friends.  It was like a big family that I love more than almost anything, and though I never really achieved as much as I wanted to running-wise in college, running was still a very important part of my life and who I was.  I still trained as hard as I could, but had to remind myself that my life, routine, nutrition (to a degree), and stress levels had changed, and those were all factors.  It was never really something I dealt with well mentally, but in the end I was still happy.  I was doing what I do, what I love, and being part of a team added a whole new dimension to running that I had only briefly experienced a couple times in high school.  I cannot effectively put into words what running at Hanover and the team at Hanover means to me, so I won't.  If you know me well personally though, you probably have a good idea.

In the moment, I always had a hard time when asked if I loved Cross Country or Track more.  I sacrificed early mornings, after school, weekends, work, homework time, my basketball and softball careers, and sometimes a social life for them.  I still don't know if I can surely say, but I must admit that, perhaps because of a bit more success and excessive good memories, I really do love Cross Country.  Below is a photo of one of my final few strides as a Cross Country runner ever my senior year of college at the Laverne Gibson Cross Country complex in Terre Haute, IN.

(red/blue top, black shorts on left)

It was a very appropriate site for it all to end, as it had been the site of my first three Semi-States in high school, and our Little State meets in college.  There is a whole lot of history for me there.  I finished, got out of the way, and turned around to face that incredibly long straightaway into the finish that I had pushed myself as hard as I could down so many times before for the last time.  It was very strange, very sad (okay, I cried), but also very happy for all the things I had done and the times I had had and friends I had made along the way.  My dad sort of immortalized that moment in photograph form, but no one will see most of those shots.  It's a little silly, but very genuine.

Senior year track season was a really good one, team dynamic-wise, though nothing extraordinary running-wise for me.  Still, I held back tears (a little unsuccessfully) like it was the end of the world when I finished that last collegiate race.  It wasn't the end of the world--just the end of a chapter, but it was a set of chapters that mean the world to me, that ended with some big transitions in my life that I at that point only knew about some of, and also put me at the beginning of that long stretch of  "rest" I was commanded to take as soon as it was over.  My body used to physically hurt when I took a day or two off running.  I always joke that I am physically addicted to running.  What on Earth was I going to feel like after months and months?

The answer to that question is weak and slow and lame, but really that rest demand ended up coming at probably the most convenient time it could have, as about a month later we learned of some serious medical stuff with my mom, and I opted out of the internship I had just gotten for the summer to stay home and help my family.  Things should be okay now.

So now, as that year of rest has ended, I can feel myself itching to start back up.  I've felt so out of shape, so lazy, so guilty for not running even though I knew I shouldn't be, and sort of emptier in a way.  I also dread starting back up in a way though, naturally partly because of how hot it is in this Midwest's summer heat, but also because I know that my body's idea of how in shape I am will not come close to aligning with my mental perception of what my capabilities and progress should be.  It will be strange, and possibly hard to go from running with a team and a coach to running completely alone when I can, how I can, but I know it's what I need to do.  I am not fully myself in a few ways lately.  The other parts will come, or change as they please, but this is one piece of myself that I can regain.

I am a runner.