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The Phoenix Runners
215 Av 53e
Lachine, QC
H8T 2Z3
Why I Run - Why I Have To Run - Ken Wolman
1. What Happened
There's also a plug in here. Lest anyone accuse me of naked commercialism or being a shill, nope. Gratitude does not equate to being a shill. I'm nobody's compensated spokesman but my feet are too important to screw with and the plug is for people who did me a world of good by helping me get into the appropriate shoes.
Now, back on April 29 my older son came down to the Shore to stay with us overnight. To say that my sons have changed my life...well, that's rather obvious, ne c'est pas? His very existence had to change my life forever after. But what he did on this particular trip changed something not just in how I perceive the greater world but in how I choose to perceive and approach myself.
Jake was running in his first competitive race, the Jersey Shore Half-Marathon, the next morning. Understandably he wanted to be there at 6 for a 7:15 gun. His father's (and mother's) son: never arrive someplace a bit early when you can get there an hour ahead. But this time it made perfect sense: the story in New Jersey is to get a good parking space that's not three towns over. So we arrived as planned.
When they shaped up at the starting line, I didn't see Jake, but another gentleman loomed large. Not for nothing did I spot him and take his picture before the race began--somehow I must have sensed he was destined to become my "change agent."
This man was 70 if he was a day. I just sort of admired him. "Way cool, an old guy running." I am 62 and I still could not imagine this.
Oh yeah. "Jesters do oft prove prophets."
A little after an hour and a quarter went by, someone said "They're starting to come in from the Half." I went out to the finish line.
And waited. The usual Worrying Daddy. "Where is he? He fell? He tore something? HELP!" I am so much a yenta....
Then Jake showed. I managed to get a picture of him crossing the line. The official results: he finished 282 in a field of 1903. Time was 1:47:08. Pretty cool for a first competitive effort. However, this kid has been a lifelong athlete, especially soccer and tennis.
When he took up running two years ago, he had trained in Wayne, NJ, and his daily routine grew to 10 miles which included a couple of hills that buses don't want to try. It's odd how at races, strangers cheer away the famous "loneliness of the long-distance runner." It isn't just about being a proud parent who would cheer for his own kid.It's strangers saluting what amounts to skill and corazon.
After he came in...who looks like a fashion ad for running apparel, or smells better? Duh. See below
The weird part is that the same old guy with the big mustache came in about 2 minutes ahead of my son, who was more than half his age. I mulled that one over for a good while, and the mulling kept coming back to the same themes and a voice that by late afternoon sounded suspiciously like Dennis Leary:
"Hey TUBBY! You, yeah, you! You're a past master of two physical activities anymore, leaps of faith and jumping to conclusions! What happened to the kid you used to be back in the Pleistocene Age who could walk Manhattan end-to-end without getting tired...on pavement...and in shitty street shoes? That was you, bag-of-guts!
Where'd that kid go? Now, you saw that guy running today. He's 70 if he's a day. He beat out your 27-year-old kid. He's running. He looks as sinewy as a piece of glatt kosher meat! What the hell are you doing? Sitting on your ass kvetching about how everything hurts and what an old fart you are? Know what? You are! Being an old fart isn't a condition, it's an ambition, and you've fulfilled it!Now...get off your fat whiny ass and go out and do something. And don't leave yourself any openings to quit because it's "too difficult," boo-hoo-hoo!--remember the immortal words of that Muppet,
Yoda: 'Do or do not do. There is no Try!'"
So I did. So I'm doing. I started running in walking shoes. It's a bigger deal than you might think. The only lessons I've learned so far are to listen to my body when I can shove my ego out of the way, and to get the right shoes--a mistake can cost you a lot more than $125 and can seriously mess you up. See, my feet hurt--the pain in the arches was really no fun at all. I went to a New Balance concept store in central Jersey where I live. Like I said, that is not a commercial (i.e., they don't know about it and nobody is schmearing me) except that it has to be: New Balance happened to put a store near where I live. I don't know if the other big companies do this. It was not brand loyalty except my kid was wearing New Balance when he ran and I'd bought the walking shoes there three years before. It could just as well have been Asics or Nike or Saucony or whoever. No, I'm not a compensated spokesman, but I'd be damned if I was going to a sports megastore in a mall to wait on myself and get a crappy fit.
The co-owners of the concept store are a woman who won the Jersey Shore Marathon three years in a row and her trainer and business partner, a man who I gather used to run marathons in snowstorms and may hold the record for running up the steps of the Empire State Building. Runners are no saner than anyone else, which is comforting.The lady took a look at my shoes and exclaimed "Why are you running in those?" "Because that's what I own?" I replied. She came back with maybe eight boxes and fitted me. The shoes I bought look a little glitzy but they feel wonderful. I suspect she and the other people in the store actually notice stuff about you when you walk in: all that stuff about pronation and supination can be spotted as you walk down the hallway, steps, and across the carpet. Well, I fought off buying the really expensive shoes, but then a week or so ago, I went back and bought them anyway. Yes, even better. Money I ought not to have spent but I spent it and I'm glad, nyeh-nyeh.
I am endeavoring to follow a program: a day on, a day off, walk, run, all regulated by time--and am waiting for my legs to stop hurting so damned soon after I start (yes I warm up) so I can push the limits a bit farther. Lead weights for legs are not fun. But it's better than the first two weeks when I had hip pain and shin splints. I traced the splints back to a third pair of shoes: an Internet purchase. They are okay to walk in with arch supports but I won't run in them.
I derive joy from this. I don't know why. I come in winded even though I quit smoking 11 months ago after 45 years of polluting myself (hint, hint). But I'm not tired. For the time I'm out on the Sea Bright splash pad, time exists in increments of 60 and 90 seconds, not according to a real clock. I don't need to think about anything:
needing a job, being pissed off at anyone (even myself). I play music in my head (Village People songs are a horrible choice but they're rhythmic--still I'd love to get them out of there). I can play music from an iPod. I can pray out loud to prove to myself that I can now breath, run, and speak. Running adjusts my attitude for the whole day and the days when I can't get out there, when I'm supposed to let my body rest up, I find more stressful than the days when I've pushed my limits further and further.
I'm pumped.
I don't know who that "old" man is that I saw, but I know who Jake is, and I know who those people in the running store are, and I thank them all.
Oh...signed up for the Philadelphia Marathon in November.
2. Learning to Love My Inner Fat Kid, and Thinning Him Out
I've been reading a lot of John Bingham's stuff. The guy who calls himself "The Penguin." He's the shining symbol for people who figure themselves to be "recoverees" from bad habits, and who live in the back of the pack. People who don't "look like runners." Which suits me fine. When the day comes for me to do my first 5K, I just want to finish it.
Bingham was me. Grossly overweight, smoked like a fiend, drank too much. What scares me is how alike we were in athletic experiences as a kid. He had some that were unmitigated disasters. So did I. I just gave up after some games of punchball in the schoolyard and some risible episodes at camp in Milltown, NJ when I was 11. The hardest thing for me to do these days is look at that fat, faggotty kid who couldn't do a damned thing with a bat, ball, feet, or fists...then forgive both of us for allowing ourselves to think that age 11 is a condemnation to a lifetime reality...and then put him away except as I can feel him looking at me on running mornings and wonder at what's happened to him as he grew up.
I am growing out of that kid but I've had to make it a priority beginning May 1 not to let him manage anything anymore. I had to sit him in the grandstand where he'd spent most of his life with me and remind him that even at age 62 I had evolved away from him and hoped to keep doing so.
The other night I had to go out and stopped in an Italian place for an absurd 12-inch meatball parmigiana sandwich. Three things happened.
First, it tasted fabulous. Second, I looked at it and said "Why am I doing this? I cannot possibly continue to eat like a goddamned whale and hope to run it off the next day." Third, it stopped tasting so great.
Is there such a thiqng as eating like a runner? Probably. I need to find out. Maybe it's a simple as more salads, pasta is cool obviously, but stop stuffing fat in my mouth. I'm also an ice cream junkie. Small amounts....
I miss my running days when I'm in a between day like I am today. I'm still steeling myself for the days when I have to go out on really crappy and rainy days like today. And for the humidity days that are coming to the Shore as they come to few places on earth (we are between a river and the Atlantic Ocean, and nothing dries).
I think I found a way to overcome a lot of bad attitudes.
I think I met God and He resides in my feet.
Ken Wolman