Running in back of the pack
Kate Rowland
Read This, It May Save Your Life
The snow on the ground and the 15 degree windchill just added to the irony of the Christmas in April run Saturday, April 8. As the participants gathered in Stepan before the race, I heard one guy say to his running partner, "They've fooled the weather into thinking it really is Christmas, and it's reacting accordingly."
I blame the weather for the small size of the running pack. The weather, and the large number of dorms having dances the night before, which would have made more than half the campus too tired to get up the next morning and go running. The weather, dances and the early hour of the race. I mean, who really wants to get up on a Saturday to be at Stepan by 10:45 a.m.? Only the really in-shape, psycho-training, 5-minutes-a-mile runners would have come out for a race on this particular day.
I'm rationalizing. Over a hundred people came out to run or walk in exchange for a free tee-shirt and the cheerful company of Rec Sports finest. But I need to rationalize, because, despite running the entire race, I finished last among the 5K runners. The winner's time was about half of my time. Three 10K runners finished before I did; they ran twice the distance in less time.
So yeah, it's a little damaging to my self-esteem to have to admit to myself that I came in last. The first race I entered was the Hockey Power Play run, in September, and, though my time was four minutes slower, I was far from the end of the pack. During the Power Play run, I never once saw the first aid cart that follows the last runner. At the Christmas in April run, the two first aid workers kept me company through the whole course.
On the other hand, and this is how I choose to look at it, I ran five kilometers. Sure, it took me a half-hour to do, but I never used to be able to do that. I didn't start running until last year, and I didn't start wondering whether I could run five kilometers until this year. The first time I tried, I couldn't.
I can now, and I'm proud of that. That's the thing about running: even if you start out terrible at it, you can see yourself getting better. Two weeks after you start, you're running farther than you could before. And at the same time, no one is standing around with a stopwatch. No one knows how long it takes you to run, no one knows if you run once and then never go out again. If you hate it, you get to stop.
Shortly after I started running, I was reintroduced to Eric Zorn's For Once in Our Lives Society (FOOLS). Eric is a columnist for the Chicago Tribune who in 1998 decided to run the Chicago Marathon in October of that year. Hundreds of readers decided to join him in his training. They started a club — FOOLS. That was all they were trying to do: get out there and attempt something new, change their lives for the better, do something unusual for once in their lives. They had a challenge, they had a goal, they had the solidarity to make it.
They also had really good lung capacity, stamina and inspiration. I thought they were nuts. I still do. A marathon is 26.2 miles; a 5K is 3.1 miles. You can do a 5K without anyone knowing, but there's no surreptitious way to run a marathon. Tell your roommate: "I'm going out for four hours, I'll come back sweaty, barely able to walk and then proceed to do nothing but drink water and moan for the next three days."
If marathoning is your thing, go for it. For me, two or three miles is enough to accomplish what I want to: I get 20 or 30 minutes alone with whatever is most pressing on my mind. I started running because of a desire to be a stronger person after I was the victim of an assault last year. It is the best therapy I could have found. Running, even at my pace, makes me feel better about myself.
Five days after my stunning finish at the Christmas in April run, I entered the Miles for Medicine 5K. I started the race pumped, psyched, ready to do better. About a half-mile in, after all the other runners were out of sight ahead of me, I heard the unmistakable burring of the first aid golf cart behind me. Two and a half miles later, I jogged into the finish line, last again. But I look at it like this: I got my tee-shirt, someone has to finish last. May as well be me.
But next time you're at a race, don't count on me being the one to finish last. I may be gaining on you. In the first aid golf cart, of course.
Kate Rowland is a senior archaeology major. She would like to thank Zachary and Burt for all their help in developing this topic, and she would also like to say hi to all the people who she says hi to while out running around the lakes. If you're bent on communicating with her, e-mail her at Rowland.6@nd.edu
The views expressed in this column are those of the author and not necessarily those of The Observer.
All Viewpoint Stories for Tuesday, April 18, 2000
