don't knock it till you try it: running

Since I didn't have the nerve to audition for the spring musical, I joined the track team during my freshman year of high school. I figured there would be nothing to it--I'd been playing soccer for years, and that involved lots of running, right? I liked the sound of "distance running," so I went ahead and signed up for that team.

It didn't take long for me to realize that I actually hated running. Every day after school, the other runners (tall, thin, blond) and I (short, dark-haired, childbearing hips) would head off to some local nature preserve to sprint ceaselessly around the trails. Although in soccer I was considered a fast runner, on the track team, I sucked.

Like the rest of my personality during that era, my running was depressive--just getting started was an almost insurmountable task, and once I was moving, I just went through the motions (laboriously) until it was over and I could go home and sleep for 15 hours straight. Needless to say, after that experience I didn't even think about running for well over a decade.

However, the years went by, and eventually I found myself shacking up with a recreational runner. For many months I refused to accompany him. I had only negative memories of the tedium of slogging endlessly around a track, usually in a stadium in Blaine.

But eventually I gave in and started experimenting with running again. At first it was horrible--my lungs hurt, I was exhausted after five minutes, I was bored out of my mind--but I gave it lots and lots of time, and eventually it became tolerable.

Now I go running every so often--sometimes even two or three times a week!--and I think I can say I almost like it. But I have not yet turned into one of those people who "love" or "crave" running, nor do I prance around Lake Calhoun in full eye makeup and a jog bra. But who knows what tomorrow might bring.