The Run-Down

This morning I got up for my run, and the second I walked out my front doors, it hit me -- the morning reminded me of mornings when I was a kid. Specifically, mornings right around the first day of school. The air, the temperature...even the way it smelled. Everything reminded me of walking to the bus stop in my new tennis shoes, ready for the first day of school.

The days (and weeks) preceding the first day of school I would be consumed with picking out my "first day back" outfit, lacing and re-lacing my new tennis shoes, and looking at my new school supplies -- which also meant loading them in and out of my backpack numerous times. Each colored folder with its matching colored spiral bound notebook. The new packages of crayons, pencils, and colored pencils. Matching my new colored eraser toppers with my pencils (pink with pink, purple with purple, and so on). I was always excited to go back to school -- even until high school, although by then I wouldn't admit it.

As I was running this morning, I thought back to having to run the mile in high school. There were two dreaded days in my high school gym class -- the day we found out that we would be starting our swimming unit, and the day the teacher announced having to run the mile. I'm still no good at swimming, but as I ran this morning, I thought, "I would love to be able to go back to high school now -- now that I can run way more than a mile without a problem." My running the mile in high school normally went like this. I grumbled with my friends about why running the mile was stupid, and how I didn't want to get sweaty because then I'd have to shower before my next class. Then, we'd line up (behind all of the kids who were on cross country and couldn't care less about having to run a measly mile) and we'd start. I would run as fast as I could for as long as I could, which typically was 1/4 around the way of the 4 lap track, and then I'd stop, gasping and panting for breath, and would think that running was dumb and horrible and painful and nobody in their right mind would ever do it. I would then proceed to walk the remainder of the 4 laps, and call it a day.

I know I'm still new to this whole "running thing," but I can tell I'm making progress. Today's run was great, and for a minute I wished I could be running down to the bus stop in my new shoes, with my new backpack and school supplies, ready to line up to run the mile in gym class.

Posted in: on Monday, August 27, 2007 at at 9:22 AM