'Cause Baby We Were Born to Run: A marathon of a blog post

I recall a day in the spring semester of what was likely my eighth grade year at Central Junior High School.  On a track outside the school, our PE student teacher for the semester tasked our class with what seemed like the most challenging feat that the human body could possibly be subjected to: running the mile.  My chubby, awkward, adolescent self had the audacity to think, "I'm going to do this."  Where this idea came from, considering my complete lack of athleticism, I have no idea, but I tried.

As the fast kids finished their miles in 7 minutes, or 8, or even 12, I had a long way to go.  My running speed was probably slower than my walking speed, and it wore me out more so and took all my effort to continue to breathe.  I walked across the finish line (actually, I walked quite a bit of it), several minutes after everyone else had gone into the locker rooms to begin showering, and our student teacher said to me, "You need to quit smoking."  I said, "I don't smoke," and he responded, "yeah, right."

While he was way off base to accuse me of being a junior high smoker (keep in mind, I was a graduate of the D.A.R.E. program), I should have been active enough as a kid to be able to run this reasonable distance. But I wasn't, and running seemed like torture.

A couple years earlier, I had joined the track team (actually I went out for all the sports teams in Junior High, making only the ones they don't cut anybody from) to do the discus or the shot put.  I thought, "I'm a strong guy; I can probably throw things." (I was wrong!) Even though these were the only events I was interested in, I quit the team when they made me run in practice any way. (After little league baseball, I quit all the sports teams I was part of)

I hated running more than I hated just about anything.  So, what changed?

Well, in September, of 2010, my wife ran the Chicago Half Marathon.  I thought she was crazy for wanting to spend over 2 hours running, when I had no desire to spend even 2 minutes running. As she was training, I thought I would join her for a bit, because I really wanted to get in shape.  I (half) committed to the Couch To 5k program, which takes you from being a couch potato to being someone who can run 3.1 miles without stopping.  I stood there in Jackson Park on the cloudless September morning of the Chicago Half Marathon, with "the Golden Lady" (pictured below) watching over the race, and I saw how excited everyone was; I caught the bug.

The Statue of the Republic stands at the starting/finish line of the Chicago Half Marathon.

When I got home, I carried on with the Couch to 5k.  I plodded away, shod in my Chuck Taylor All Stars and dressed in flannel pajama pants with a plain white t-shirt, and gradually increased the amount of time I was able to run. On week 5, when I hit 2 miles straight, I knew it was something I could accomplish.

I didn't want to run my first 5k alone in the woods, so Jamie and I signed up for a 5k together.  We did the inaugural Monster Dash 5k in Chicago, which is a costumed race.  Not only did we do the race together, but we brought our daughter (in the jogging stroller...with a flat tire) and our chocolate lab, Satchmo.

Downloaded from the Monster Dash Facebook page.

 The race itself felt like forever, as if the finish line was moving further and further away from our location on the route.  We pushed forward, flat tire and all, and we crossed the finish line after about 38 minutes.


It was such a thrilling experience that I figured I would keep running after the race.  I upped my mileage week by week, and in December of that year, I decided I would really commit to running, so I signed up for the Illinois Marathon at the end of April.  A person with good common sense would have picked a race in the summer or the fall to avoid training during the winter, but then again, a person with good common sense wouldn't voluntarily run 26.2 miles.

The day after Christmas, I started training in my brand new Brooks running shoes with This American Life playing through my ear buds.  It was cold as hell for 2 months (an expression I never fully understood, because most of the hellian imagery involves eternal flame). I continued to run, taking a break only for the February 1st blizzard dubbed the "snow-pocalypse".

When I started, my runs were out and back.  As the spring approached, I was able to circle the 7.6 miles of Lake Bloomington and run loops.  I was hitting new milestones every week, and I was feeling great.  I was still pretty slow however.  People always talk about how much of a time commitment running a marathon is, and if you're running a 13 minute mile, which was a pretty typical pace for me, it is even more of a time commitment.  I probably ran around that lake 50 times, and I listened to every single episode of This American Life.  And it felt like a chore.  It wasn't fun.

Even so, I carried on.  The big day came, and I was ready for it. I lined up with the slowest pacing group, which was probably 11 minutes per mile, and the race started.  Now, when you're running a race, something magical happens (actually, it's biological, but that doesn't sound as exciting) The thrill of the crowd triggers some sort of emotional response that sends adrenaline rushing through your body, and you are suddenly capable of reaching your complete physical potential.  The problem therein, is that it can only be sustained for so long until you are wiped.

By the time I got up to mile 6, I found myself running with the pacing group on track to a 4:40 marathon (like a 10:45 pace, which is way faster than I normally ran).  I was only able to sustain that until about mile 16, when I started to fall back.  Each mile after I started to slow down took so much effort to keep running, regardless of what pace it was.  But I kept it up until mile 22.  Every step was further than I had ever run, and I was drained of all energy. I couldn't carry on running, so I started taking several "walking breaks", where you walk instead of run.  When I hit mile 24, I took an entire mile of a walking break.  The slowest pace group passed me, and I knew that surely this could not be a good sign.

I started running and walking and running and walking for my last 1.2 miles.  Though I was slow, there was still a crowd cheering me on, and as I saw Memorial Stadium, the football field whose 50 yard line served as the finish line, I started sprinting.  After 5 hours and 4 minutes, I crossed the finish line, got my medal, and went to lie down on the ground. As I lay there I said to myself, "I'm glad I did that, but I will never do it again!"

Fast forward to New Year's Eve that same year.  It was cold, probably 29 degrees.  It had rained the night before, and much of that rain had iced over, leaving a rough ground.  I was out in Carpentersville, IL for a New Year's Eve party at a friend's house, and I was running 6 miles.  By the time I was 2 miles in, I could not feel my feet.  I was barefoot, and I had bad form, so my feet got some major blisters.

I spent the countdown to 2012 in a bathtub breaking open my huge blisters.

I started running barefoot shortly after the marathon.  There are many reasons for this, but the main reason I do so is because it feels good, and not just physically, but mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. In some Buddhist traditions, the monks engage in Barefoot Walking Meditation, and while I don't share the bulk of their beliefs, I think there is something to this practice. When my naked sole kisses the earth, God touches my naked soul through the engagement with his creation.  It functions as exercise and prayer, fun and meditation, a destressor and an act of worship.

Over the past two years of running barefoot, my form has improved significantly and my callouses have gotten as thick as Kanye West's ego.  I can now run great distances without blistering. Prior to barefooting, running was a chore; now it is pure joy.

I swore off marathons at the end of my first, but next weekend, I am running the Bank of America Chicago Marathon, and I couldn't be more excited.  I plan to do the whole thing barefoot and run with the 4:10 pacing group, which would knock almost an hour off my first time.  I'm excited to run in one of the larger marathons in the country, and I'm even more excited to take in the Windy City on foot.

Note:  A myriad of books on barefoot running have come out recently due to the success of Born to Run by Christopher McDougall, which is not actually about barefoot running but has a pretty significant chapter on the topic.  One such book is Barefoot Running Step By Step by Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton.  Born to Run is an essential read for runners and non-runners alike, with the chapter I mentioned talking about the physiology of barefooting.  Ken Bob's book is a fun read about getting into barefoot running and contains some funny stories from those who run shoeless.