I was a Runner

Whenever my addiction was at its most intense, I was only filled with focus to complete that next run. It devoured my entire mind. At least when I ran I forgot about her. I suppose the fact that so much suffering was involved with long distance running is what really drew me towards running. She was a stained memory on my heart, someone I would never forget. I knew the first time our eyes met that we were meant to be together.
Sometimes no matter how much two people want to be together or were suppose to be together it just doesn’t work out. As her and I drifted apart I knew it was my responsibility to end it. When she was really gone from my life I ran more than ever. I was running near 100 miles a week and getting long runs over 20 miles. It wasn’t enough most of the time, but I couldn’t go further without hurting my chances at my actual races, 8k and 10k.
As my college career ended with a very disappointing race I had to move onward. I was done in college, but still needed running. I moved on to ultra running. I started up slowly, mostly trail runs at 7 minute pace. I eventually worked up to 35 mile runs at 6:30 to 6:50 mile pace. I would run 25 miles on Saturday and 35 miles on Sunday. I was obsessed with running. As my 50 miler approached I backed off training a little bit but suddenly realized that I wasn’t going to make it. I had to work 40 hours over the course of three days and one of those days was my race. It didn’t discourage me, I knew that I would have completed it. I never pushed my body all the way to the edge as I did when I was in college but I knew that I could make 15 more miles at a little slower pace.
I reflected many times when I was running of past pains that I had experienced. I remember running on a stress fracture in my tibia and thinking it was shin splints. I remember walking a mile and a half on a broken ankle. I remember all the bruised arches, runner’s knee, and tight ITB. I remember pushing my body so hard that my nose started to bleed, that my eyes would tear up, and my legs collapsed from pure exhaustion. I remember the first time I ran 25 miles and that feeling of the run pulsating through my bones and how badly it ached. I remember all the hills, all the flat open roads. I remember all the mile repeats, all the 400 meter repeats, and all the 1000 meter repeats. The things my feeble body has been through makes me think of what a man with a stronger mind could go through.
I think some of the greatest compliments I have ever received was when my college coach told me he wished he could put my heart in other runners. Another was when my assistant coach told me that running as hard as what I did was noble. What I really thought when my assistant coach told me that was that I never thought I ran hard enough. I guess that was my curse, I never thought I tried hard enough.
So the years passed and my mindset remained the same, but I fell from the runner that I was. I was a runner in my past, I would like to think that I still was, but I wasn’t. I worked too much and became lazy. I was still in good enough shape that I was better than a non runner. My two mile time fell from around 10:20 in high school to 13:30 to were I was. I remember when I could run 10 miles under an hour, run a 10k in 34:00 minutes.
I so badly want to return to be the same runner that I was, but starting again is so hard. It’s the fact that I know what a 10:20 feels like, what a 34:00 feels like, that makes it so hard to start again. I do know one thing though, I will return to be the runner I once was, to be the guy who ran only to run harder, ran to see when if my body would give out before my mind, ran to forget the past. I put a challenge out to all the former runners out there; start again, feel that feeling of gliding down a road, floating up a hill, forgetting about the past.