Running With Kal

I remember the day I became a runner: May 31, 1985. College was still four months in the future but I was determined to maintain some semblance of good health after high school graduation for one simple reason - vanity.

What can I say - the late teens and 20's can be a very narcissistic age.

Granted, I was not accumulating ridiculous mileage every week (an easy 2-4 miles every morning), but I rarely missed a day. In fact, at my most obsessive, I logged 18 straight months of running between days off. Hung over? Run. Sick? Run. Subzero temperatures? Run. Blazing heat? Run.

With the hindsight of 30 years, I wonder why that kid couldn't schedule more days off now and then. I suppose, besides the physical benefits, I viewed running as therapy - something I could control in a life that was continually experiencing change. It grew into the one constant bridge between life's many rites of passage - college, moving, job change, marriage, parenthood, divorce, aging.

Not surprisingly, my bond with running frayed as adulthood lengthened. Job responsibilities meant running became an activity to squeeze in - and afterthought rather than a priority. Running alone was replaced by a jogging stroller and a memory for Dr. Suess stories whenever the stroller occupant became fussy. And so an ongoing love of The Lorax was born. But through it all, running was a companion I could return to no matter how long the absence.

 Never more than a middle-of-the-pack runner, I enjoyed racing a few times a year. Competing only with myself, race times became a yardstick I measured against past performances, and against time itself. Naturally, those race times became inflated as years passed until racing itself lost its appeal - the slower times being a realistic (but still disappointing) reminder of my own decline.

Oh boo hoo, Eric. 

Leave it to me to transform running into some sort of Greek tragedy, a personal vision quest replete with its own mythos and melodrama. Hey, I started running to stay in shape, nothing more. That it morphed into something I carried with me throughout adulthood is no big surprise. Addictions work that way, right?

Thankfully, over the past decade, I have accepted that I will never be the runner I used to. The times, the distances, the dedication - they are all out of reach now. And good riddance. While I look back with some pride at my persistence, I know with certainty I wouldn't want to be that person anymore. What was I chasing? Probably some measure of independence, even immortality. Easy, Eric - melodrama remember?

I was happily reminded of this a few days ago in my hometown. Like most small Midwestern communities, Carlton, Minnesota hosts a summer weekend celebration which includes the typical softball and volleyball tournaments, a classic car show, arts and crafts sales, a street dance, and of course drinking, drinking, drinking. But kicking off Carlton Daze for the past 20+ years has been a Friday evening 5k run/walk.

I have entered a few of these over the years but was always determined to run as well as possible. Naturally, this meant running alone with only my race watch to keep me company. Pretty lonely. This year would be different.

A high school/lifelong friend who lives in the Carlton area (yes you, Kal) always makes a point of waddling (his words, not mine)  this 5k annually. This year I said I would join him. Though he was quick to comment that I would be on my second post-race beer by the time he crossed the finish line,  I told him I would waddle too.

Running with Kal, none of that long gone youthful vanity mattered. Just two middle-aged guys content to waddle together over the scenic 3.1 mile course, swap successes and sorrows, laugh, reminisce, renew a friendship - oblivious of the dozens (hundreds?) of people passing us. We eased across the finish line satisfied. PR's would belong to other people that day but neither of us cared.

Had it been the past - had I run alone - the race would already be forgotten. But running with Kal - slipping easily back into a friendship that reminds me of who I am and where I came from - well, that made it my best race ever (come on, you really didn't think I wouldn't wrap it up with a little dose of drama, did you?).