I have a confession to make. I ran a 5K. There I said it. July 12 at 8:30AM I ran, approximately 3.1 miles from start to finish. I’m still reeling from the shock, still processing the details. Me? Yes it’s true, no matter how I look at it I can’t escape the fact that I actually did it.
For some people running comes naturally, they get into the running flow, they look graceful, they love it, they even plan vacations around running. However, I’ve spent years, a lifetime in fact, ranting about how running is ‘not for me’ and mocking running, what with the huffing and puffing and gasping for breath, the wheezing, sweating, jiggling and general distastefulness.
When I found myself, as a child, in a hospital oxygen tent to manage a severe bronchitis attack, picking the yellow fuzz off a little plastic Easter chick from my Easter basket, it was reaffirmed that I had inherited my great-grandmother’s lungs.
I was named after my grandmother, Betty, whose mother died when she was 14 years old. Because of great-grandma Ethel’s weak lungs and the doctor’s diagnosis of an allergy to the cold, the family moved from New Hampshire to Florida as her prescription. A few years later, Ethel’s father asked the family to move back to New Hampshire to care for him and not long after her father died from old age, my great-grandmother died young from her weak lungs, leaving Betty to care for her brothers, sisters and father while yet a teen.
From a young age I would get sick easily, coughing and wheezing and staying home for days at a time when we lived in a cold climate. So our family moved to the warmth of Arizona to prevent another loss in the family. Learning all of this later in life, I recognize how I was influenced by the weak lungs concern from birth and encouraged to avoid strenuous exercise and allowed to read for hours on end to protect my health.
About five years ago, shortly after moving to California, I started walking every morning out of self defense in dealing with an overload of stress. My body and mind were agitated and the only relief seemed to be to move. As I walked, bird song, neighbor’s gardens and the blue sky relaxed me and my inner negativity dropped away.
One day while waiting for a Jamba Juice smoothie, a how-to book on the sales shelf, Chi Running by Danny Dreyer, captured my attention. As I flipped through the pages I was shocked to learn that this gentleman and other equally insane individuals ran not only marathons, but 56 mile or more ultra-marathons! On a whim, and out of a growing fascination with the whole running thing, I bought it on the spot and stealthily brought it home to read behind closed doors. What I read startled me. Mr. Dreyer encouraged breathing out first, for the count of three, and then in, for the count of two so that the exhalation made room for new oxygenated air. Could it be that simple? Whenever I had been forced, by obviously insensitive P.E. teachers, to run for any amount of time, I soon began panting for breath, feeling the burning in my lungs for hours afterward. After reading this book however, I wondered if perhaps my gasping and wheezing wasn’t from having weak lungs, maybe I just needed to learn how to breathe. Breathe? One might think breathing is a fundamental skill all humans possess, but I soon discovered that I was an amateur in this most basic of life functions. So after three years of daily walking, I began running part of the way home, always downhill, never timing myself or noting the distance. My life focus narrowed to breathing, out first, two, three, in next, one, two. I can’t imagine that I ran for even more than two minutes, but those two minutes were a major accomplishment for me.
Some time after that, I noticed a sign advertising a race up in the Santa Cruz Mountains with options including a 10K Run, 5K Run, 5K Walk and 1K Run. My thought at the time was, I will probably do the 5K walk, but I wondered if I could do a 1K run? Not knowing how long a 1K or 5K even was, I looked it up on the internet. Feeling bold I figured I would sign up for the 1K run since I had never done any type of formal race before. Unfortunately, when I went to sign up I was not allowed to register for the kids only 1K race, so it was either the 5K run or walk. Could I really run 3 miles? My daily two minutes of running success went to my head as I took a deep breath and registered for the run.
The day of the race was sunny and cool up in the mountains, but I felt like an impostor as I pinned on my number and milled among the crowd. Laughing at my audacity, I reminded myself that my first goal was to breathe properly and second was to run the whole way. Of course I started at the back of the crowd and was promptly left in the dust, literally. Yet I kept running uphill for a mile and a half. My sole comfort, as spry young runners were already heading back down, was that I was still running as I passed other participants who had slowed to a walk. When I turned around at the half way point, tears of joy pricked my eyes for the opportunity to go downhill the rest of the way, even though those walkers passed me again on the way down. Nevertheless, I ran the race, I breathed the good air and I finished feeling triumphant!
Imagine my chagrin and dilemma. I’m now faced with this new perspective and realization that the limited future I had so carefully planned out for myself is now shattered into possibilities and unknowns. If I can run a 5K what else can I do? So I’ve started a list of all the things I should, would, could never do, just so I’m not caught off guard by what might happen next. I’m also asking my friends and family to remind me that I ran a 5K the next time I start yakking about something that’s ‘not for me’ – I’d hate to embarrass myself further.
