Running with a Police Escort

by Jill Grunenwald

  It’s those scary, dark, and twisty parts that prompted me to take up running initially. Because it’s not sunshine and roses that gets a person weighing over 300 pounds. In my case, it was a lot of misplaced shame and low self-esteem that was dealt with in the form of late-night candy bars and almost daily trips to the drive-through of local fast food restaurants.

  If I had never gotten myself in a position where I weighed 311 pounds, my sister would have never written me that email in December of 2010. If she had never written me that email, I never would have set out to lose weight, and if I had never been determined to get to a smaller size, I never would have turned to running as a form of exercise. While it may have taken me a rather circuitous route to get there, but I’d rather have arrived a little late to the party if it meant I could spend my later years there, than have been a guest back in the day who went home before the event really got started.

  Because, really, even if I had done well as a runner when I was younger, there’s nothing to guarantee that I would have continued as I got older. I could have run the mile in middle and high school, swiftly moving my way around the track in my polyester blue uniform. Maybe I would have even run track and in college gone on to tackle longer distances like Megan, racking up half marathon after half marathon.

  Or, maybe, kind of like with my flute playing and the marching band, I would have quit once I was no longer being graded for my participation. Even if I was a natural at it, I don’t know if I would have had the motivation and determination at that age to follow it through.

  If these were my options—be a faster runner as a teenager who fizzled out before reaching adulthood versus being someone who discovered her love for the activity later on, knowing she had the rest of her life to run, even if at a slower pace … I would take the latter option every day of the week. Really, it’s not even a question that needs to be asked.

  So it was, while running through a forest just a hair’s breadth away from my old stomping ground, that I really started to see the forest for the trees.

  Glen Echo: a typical quiet, suburban street lined with quaint homes full of families still asleep on this summer morning. It was here that the Bicentennial Trail ended and the final leg of the 5K began. Immediately adjacent to the high school campus, I knew I was closing in on that finish line. I followed the curve of the road until I found myself back on Hudson-Aurora Road. At the intersection I turned right, putting myself back on the long stretch of road outside the high school.

  As I neared the mouth of the driveway I looked to the right, towards the school and stadium. Tall pillars of steel rose high against the horizon. The stadium, the finish line, the track of my high school, was so close I could practically feel the black rubber beneath my shoes already.

  Behind the dark shade of my sunglasses, my eyes started to water.

  When I reached the driveway entrance to the high school, I turned right and headed up the slight incline towards the stadium looming in the back of the property. I ran through the adjacent parking lot and through the entrance to the field’s fence.

  Situated a few yards ahead of me, on the track, was the blue inflatable tunnel used by the varsity football team during home games. When we started, the tunnel had been pushed back into a corner of the fence and I didn’t think anything of it. When I looked through the opening I spied the finish line clock, the digital seconds counting up. Clearly, I was meant to run through the tunnel.

  This was it. This was the moment. There was literally a light at the end of the tunnel. On the other side of that tunnel wasn’t just the finish line and hugs from my parents. Running through that tunnel, passing under the front arch with the words HUDSON EXPLORERS emblazoned in big white letters, solidified just how far I had come. From the girl who had walked one mile on the track to the woman who had just ran three of them.

  I took a deep breath. I took all that teenage angst and low self-esteem and turned it inside out, transforming the negative energy into something positive. Flying through that tunnel I fell down the rabbit hole into my own personal Wonderland.

  In 1940, Thomas Wolfe published the novel You Can’t Go Home Again. In the decades since, his title has entered the American lexicon to signify an antithesis to nostalgia and sentimentality. Youthful wistfulness will never be as Technicolor-esque in our memories as it was in the moment we lived it, but that’s not always a bad thing. Sometimes memories too painful to relive seem to burn brighter and we yearn for an opportunity to snuff the flame.

  At the same time, who wouldn’t love an opportunity to return to the scene of the crime and tell that Bitchy McBitcherson to shut the fuck up when she starts talking smack? Or ask out that one cute guy who was always so nice to you and would chat with you by your locker, but you were always convinced he was just being polite and it took about ten years of life and dating to realize he was so totally flirting with you.

  Of course, unless you’re a thousand-year-old Gallifrayen who goes by the name “The Doctor” and you tool around time and space in a specially outfitted blue police box, chances are that time travel is a little outside of your areas of expertise. (Then again, if you are a thousand-year-old Gallifrayen who goes by the name … well, yeah, all of that, um, you should call me.)

  All we can, all any of us can do, is keep moving forward and attempt to not let the scars of the past interfere with the future we create for ourselves on a daily basis.

  So, yes, I understand Thomas Wolfe’s sentiment. But only to an extent. While I support the notion that the memories I have in my mind are shaded with a lens that adds a soft light, I also think it’s okay if my remembrance of events past are a little out of focus, a little dull compared to reality. So, sure, I can’t relive the past in any meaningful way. I don’t have a time machine, be it a DeLorean, a Blue Police Box, or any other untraditional means of time teleportation transportation. I don’t have the option of walking the same sidewalks, driving down the same street—too much time has passed at this point.

  But that’s okay, because those memories, as watered down as they may be, can still be a strong motivator to make changes that set us down a new course. So, with respect to Mr. Wolfe, I have to disagree because I think you can go home again.

  And sometimes, if you’re only very, very lucky, you even get to run there.

  5

  Twenty Seconds of Insane Courage

  The Veteran’s Memorial 5K was only one of several citywide events held in honor of the new varsity stadium. The night before the race, the football team hosted the season opener. And with the start of the new school year, one thing was certain:

  Autumn was officially here.

  Now anyone who lives outside the sunnier meccas of the US knows all too well that seasonal depression is real, and it affects everyone differently. Even the seasonal part of seasonal depression fluctuates from person to person. If asked, most people probably only think of it as a winter affliction since that is when it’s most prevalent, but spring and summer seasonal depression exists, even if more rare.

  For me, seasonal depression strikes in the fall—sometimes in September, often in October, never in November. By the time my birthday rolls around in mid-November, I have usually managed to maneuver out from under the cloud that keeps my brain foggy and motivation nonexistent.

  During this time of my autumnal ennui (or, really, any other time depression decides to strike), just the thought of even thinking about going out for a run requires so much energy that all I want to do is take a nap. That first autumn after I started running was particularly challenging because I knew that I should run, and some part of me even wanted to, and I also knew that exercise and endorphins would no doubt be beneficial, but there was just no way I could fight my way out of the harvest haze.

  In the past, it had never really mattered if I gave into seasonal ennui because I didn’t have any sort of activity or schedule to keep up with. If I wanted to spend an entire weekend immobile in bed going through my entire Netflix queue, I could
do so without any sort of repercussions on my training or fitness level.

  Granted, that’s also the sort of behavior that put me in a position where I once weighed over 300 pounds, but, tomayto, tomahto.

  Add to this, along with the depression I also have some mild anxiety. This combination doesn’t really bode well for my overall sense of self.

  The struggle is real.

  But as a runner, I have to be thoughtful and aware of how my taking a week or two off is going to have an effect on my running. Things like losing my base become very real concerns. When it comes to starting a new training regiment, nobody wants to start over from scratch.

  Now I know the importance of keeping up on mileage, even without an event on the horizon, but back in 2012 I had no idea such a thing was a very important part of being a successful runner.

  So when, in the weeks after the Veteran’s Memorial 5K, that seasonal depression reared its ugly head, my running severely slacked off. Pretty much to the point of nonexistence. It was September and I still had two 5Ks scheduled for the remainder of 2012—one in October and one in November—but between those races I wasn’t doing much running. I’d lost my mojo and I was honestly starting to worry I’d never get it back. Even after those October and November races, I still had to contend with winter. If I couldn’t even manage to get out and run when it was still relatively nice out, how on earth was I going to get through the cold, dark days of December and January?

  What I needed was a big push, something to encourage me and keep me motivated enough to keep running. Something that would inspire me to keep going, to run towards a better version of myself.

  Then, like fate arriving in the form of an email, I was notified that in 2013 the Rock ‘N’ Roll Marathon series was coming to the home of Rock ‘N’ Roll for an inaugural event.

  Despite the name, the Rock ‘N’ Roll races cover the spectrum of distances, from 5K all the way up to the full marathon. The race offerings depend entirely on the city, with some offering the smaller races and others not. These destinations—or “Tour Stops” as they are known—cross international waters and runners who travel and participate in multiple races can earn extra medals beyond the usual finisher’s bling.

  Cleveland was getting a half marathon in the fall, which was new and basically the seasonal opposite of the officially named Cleveland Marathon held annually in May. While the Cleveland Marathon is local and more grassroots, the Rock ‘N’ Roll Marathon series scales the globe, bringing with it a name recognition that few other races can claim.

  I sat at my desk, staring at the email, speechless. My mind started to move at warp speed as I considered the possibility.

  Here I was, actually contemplating running a half marathon.

  I’d only been running for about six months and 3.1 miles was the longest distance I had yet tackled. Could I really add on another ten miles and be successful? Never mind being successful, could I physically run 13.1 miles and live to tell the tale? Was my body even capable of that?

  13.1 miles. I mean, that’s a long way to travel by foot. I live about ten miles from my job and, lemme tell ya, Monday mornings when nobody wants to be headed into work and everyone is in need of extra coffee, that commute in my car seems to go on forever. So to run above and beyond that … I wasn’t sure that was something I could really do.

  Well, I mean, obviously, at the time I was considering registering, it wasn’t something I could do. Hell, I don’t think I could have walked thirteen miles, let alone run them. The only people I know who can wake up on a Saturday and decide to go run thirteen miles with very little training are ultra-marathoners. Those people who run fifty or hundred miles for a single race. To them, thirteen miles is like three to me.

  Perspective, baby. It’s all about that perspective.

  Once that seed was planted, once the idea of running a half marathon entered my brain, I started to consider the possibility. There were just some logistical things that needed to be figured out first.

  Mainly, it’s important to note that half marathons are not cheap. Up until this point, the most I’d paid to register for a race was maybe $30 and even that probably included online processing fees with the actual registration cost only being $25.

  Now, though, I was looking at paying over $100. For me (and for most non-billionaires), that’s not a small chunk of change. Also, the registration was both nontransferable and non-refundable. If something happened—I got injured, my training didn’t go so well, family emergency, whatever—I’d be out a hundred bucks and not even have a fancy finisher’s medal to show for it.

  This was a big decision I was about to make. Both physically and financially. And there was no guarantee I’d be able to do it. Before registering for the my first 5K, I’d already run three miles, which meant that when I started to fill out the online registration form and input my information and credit card number, I was already confident in my abilities to complete the distance on race day.

  But with this … running 13.1 miles before signing up, just to make sure this was a feasible endeavor, wasn’t an option. This had to be done on blind faith.

  I’m a fairly risk-adverse individual. I don’t like failing—not that anyone does—but I make a point to not take chances unless I’m pretty confident in my abilities and the end result. On the flip side of that, when I am confident I’m tenacious as hell. When I know what I want—and I know I can get it—I’m not afraid to go after it and do whatever it takes.

  That was the place I was in now, reading over the information about the Rock ‘N’ Roll Cleveland Half Marathon.

  The risk-adverse gene in me was pointing out the financial and physical strain I’d be putting on my wallet and my body, with no way of knowing how I’d fare. It’s not that I was concerned with my pace or place or any of that, but could I actually run 13.1 miles?

  I know the saying goes “If I can do it, anybody can do it,” but I don’t know how much of that I believe. In real life, everybody is different and every body is different and maybe not every body is equipped to navigate the same endeavors, and that’s okay.

  Fear can be a paralyzer. Not so much fear itself, more the fear of the unknown. It’s that whole risk-adverse personality. Without knowing if I’d be successful, if I’d cross that finish line in triumph, that fear started to creep in, leading to a sense of inertia.

  Inertia, it turns out, is not that much different than ennui.

  But that sense of dissatisfaction, of wanting and needing more and being unable to find it, is exactly why and how I ended up on the registration page for a half marathon. That ennui led me here—was I now going to stop short and not follow through merely because I didn’t know what this would look like on the other side?

  Once I registered, that was it. There was no turning back.

  On the other side of the argument, though, is that if I planned on running this—if I followed through on registering, well over a year in advance of the actual race—I’d have that on the horizon. I couldn’t just slack off my running and give into my fitness languor, I’d have to at least try and be consistent with my workouts.

  Considering the planet Earth is four and a half billion years old, I recognize that twenty seconds doesn’t seem like much in the grand scheme of things. After all, what all can a person really accomplish in such a brief amount of time? But like Chuck Palahniuk wrote in his novel Rant, “The future you have tomorrow won’t be the same future you had yesterday.”

  As it turns out, with just a few keystrokes on the computer, twenty seconds is just long enough to entirely alter the course of your life.

  In October, I ran the Nature’s Bin 5K, a race that supported a local health food store. The race itself was in the nearby city of Lakewood with the start and finish line both at the beautiful Lakewood Park, overlooking Lake Erie and the city skyline off in the horizon.

  The following month, I ran the Next Step Run for Shelter 5K at Edgewater Park. It was here that I won my very first medal. Granted,
it was for fundraising, but that $1,065 I raised went towards helping homeless and underprivileged youth find a steady place of shelter. Not only was it the first medal I won—earned, not given—but it was my first medal ever. Considering my speed, it’s unlikely I’ll ever win any other kind of racing medal anytime soon, but that fundraising took a different kind of hard work.

  It was now nearing the very end of 2012 and already my 2013 racing calendar was starting to take shape. But the Rock ‘N’ Roll Cleveland Half Marathon was still about a year away so I needed races to fill in the twelve months or so I had until race day.

  Soon, my weekends were spent researching local races and I thought I had settled on a particular March race to be my first of the year, until my Uncle Don from Texas invited me down to run a race with him.

  Now my uncle truly is a runner. The kind of runner who often wins awards in his age group. I’m fairly certain I’ll never win an award in my age group unless I’m, like, eighty, and the only one that old still crazy enough to be running.

  My Aunt Marianne had been in Cleveland over the summer and she first initiated the conversation about me maybe coming down to Houston for a visit and to run with my uncle. She told him I thought that it sounded great and so he gathered a list of late winter and early spring races which he emailed to me with the instruction to pick one.

  Living in Northeast Ohio, I’m accustomed to a racing schedule that follows the seasons. Ohio has all four seasons and that tends to determine the availability of races more than anything else. The calendar year is bookmarked by a small smattering of 5Ks and the rare 10K races in the very early and very late months of the year, with most races happening spring, summer, and fall. Larger races in particular, the half, full, and ultra marathons, occur when the weather is on the warmer side.