I Don't Know Where I'm Running Now, I'm Just Running On

Handing off my baton at The State Track Meet when I was 15.

Well, I finally got some good news...Or at least better news. I had a follow-up appointment last Friday for my Grave's disease and to see how my meds were working.They ran a bunch of blood tests, and most of them were good. He said my thyroid numbers were still almost non-existent (I went from a .001 to a .01), but my free T numbers were getting much better. I guess the meds can take up to six months to get to where they need to be. So, the doctor said I can just keep on keeping on with it, and come back in another few months to reassess.

The best news was that he said I could start getting my heart rate up to 160. I'm a big heart rate spiker. Which means I'm still going to have to be careful, but I can start running again as long as I gradually ease into longer and faster runs. I know a lot of people who would go searching for a second opinion, if their doctor told them they could start running again, but when my doctor told me, I almost kissed him.

I was still running at least 35 miles a week in my early 40's here.

 

 I know I always say this, but running has been one of the true great loves of my life. Not to be overly dramatic, but it pretty much saved my life during the worst parts of it.

I got into running in 1975, the year my mom died, and I was heartbroken, and we moved to a suburb on the South side of Chicago. My parents weren't into sports, and I went to one of those "Free to be You and Me" schools in the 70;'s in Arizona where we didn't do things that were all that competitive. But it seemed like everyone in the Midwest played team sports. I've never had the attention span for most team sports, and I was never very good at them. Then we had a little school track meet in 5th grade, and shocker of all shocks, I found that I could run. Not only that, but I LIKED to run. 

The first real benefit I got from running, was finally being able to sleep at night. I used to have a horrible time sleeping when I was a kid (my poor mother), and when I got into running I was suddenly sleeping through the night. It was amazing.

Of course, when I started running, no one I knew had ever heard of running shoes. We all ran in our cheap, gym shoes that we got from Venture. There also was no such thing as a sports bra. We all just wore regular bras. Once during the state track meet, my bra strap broke at the beginning of my split of the 4 x 400 relay, and I had to hold my bra strap with my hand the entire rest of the race. I was so embarrassed. 

The first time I ever saw women wearing sports bras was in 1983. The rich girls from Valley High in Des Moines showed up wearing them at districts, and we all kept asking each other, "What's wrong with their boobs?"

Of course, now there is a ridiculous amount of gear for runners, and it's a million times nicer to run when it's below zero out, and you aren't wearing big, cotton sweat pants that are so drenched with your own sweat that they freeze hard while while you run.

I got really into trail running in my 50's. It helps my foot pain to run on softer surfaces.

 Running has always been my sanctuary. People didn't own their own personal treadmills to run on for years after I got into the sport, so I've never really used one. I run outside, and that combination of moving outside, and a free high has helped me through the worst times of my life. 

After a few years of finding out who the hell I was and what the hell worked for me to be a happy human in my late teens, where I was only running sporadically, I found an article in Runner's World magazine about how to get into the habit of running. It said to just start doing a short distance. I chose a mile. They said to run or run/walk that almost every day, until it felt easy, then bump it up to two miles. When I was 22 I tried that. After about a month of gradually increasing the distance, I could run almost any distance. 

From then on, I ran at least six miles a day, close to every day until I hit my late 40's. I started having really bad problems with metatarsalgia, where the balls of my feet would feel like they were being stabbed with ice picks if I ran more than six miles. Then that distance shortened to five miles, and now it's closer to three. When I was around 50, I needed to wear a patella strap on my left knee when I ran. I sometimes feel like I'm being held together with band-aids now. Thank jeebus my husband works at an orthopedic clinic...

I've always known I wouldn't be able to run forever. When I was about 25 I thought that if I was lucky, I'd be able to run until I was 40, and that seemed so old that I was satisfied with the prognosis. Now, I'm 57 and I'm still limping along. I had to take three months off while we sorted out my hyperthryroidism this Fall. But last Friday I was given the green light to start again. I "ran" 2 miles that day, and every other day since then. Of course, I'm running those two miles slower than I thought it was possible to go and still call it running, but it feels SO. DAMN. GOOD. to be shuffling along outside, and that runner's high after the first mile is still as as lovely as ever. I once told a friend of mine that the reason I never got into doing drugs was that a runner's high was so perfect and there were no side-effects. To which she responded, "Well, the side-effect is that you have to run to get that high." Touche'!

So, if you happen to see me out limping on down the road with my very distinctive gait, and you wave at me, and I don't seem to recognize you, just know that I am as high as hell, and don't take it personally. I may not be able to keep it up much longer, but I feel so lucky to have found the thing that I love to do that has helped me physically, mentally, and emotionally at such a young age. Some people never find that.