Another day, another frigid, cold run. There have been quite a few of those lately, as winter tightens its grip. Before I set out, a little voice said: Stay in. You can skip this one. You can add miles later. But that voice in my head hardly wins out anymore. At some point, without asking for it, running just became essential. Not a maybe, or a nice to do, or even a want. It’s just my thing.
“Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.”
Book 8, Paragraph 98, of The Persian Wars by Herodotus
(and the unofficial motto of the US Postal Service)
I never expected to be a distance runner. Starting with middle school, I flirted with running, huffing and puffing short loops in the subdivision where I grew up. I ran with the cross country and track team in eighth grade, more for the social aspect than anything else. Running was an on-again, off-again affair through college. For a good while post-college I just didn’t run at all.
It wasn’t until I lost a close friend unexpectedly that running came back to me. I set out with some dusty, beat down Pumas and a broken heart. In that darkness, running became something else. A moving meditation. A retreat. Therapy in motion.
I kept lacing up. I bought actual running shoes. One mile turned into three, which led to five. When I ran my first six-miler, it hit me like a flash: a half marathon wasn’t that far away. I started saying things like, “I’m just running 4 miles.” And that number shifted. Just six. Just ten. Just a half.
Funny thing is, if I’d set out to run a marathon, or even a half, I probably would have gotten discouraged. Those goals would have been too daunting. Adding a little at a time, moving the goal post just a little further, was an unexpected magic. Becoming a runner just sort of snuck up on me.
Essential.
And now I can’t imagine life without it. No matter the conditions, I always feel better afterwards. And that’s the spark for the name of this site. Right as rain. Right as run.