As a four-year-old I ran in the children’s foot races at the summertime family reunions. I was always the last kid to cross the finish line. Maybe second-to-last, if one cousin of mine was fortunately misfortunate enough to trail behind me.
Deep in my heart I never really wanted to run the races, but my parents always encouraged it, and so I did it because I guess I liked being a submissive child, and I loved playing with my siblings and cousins more than almost anything else. But my good reasons for running did not diminish the slight sorrow I felt each time I realized I was the slowest.
I don’t remember ever crying about being the loser; I think I’ve always been skilled at keeping a smile on my face, even as a little tyke. That doesn’t mean it never hurt my heart, though. Losing always hurts, even if it’s only a tiny bit of pain.
Speaking of pain, let’s travel to a fateful day in my middle school adolescence, shall we? Get this:
One day, when I was twelve or thirteen, it was 50 Yard Dash Day in P.E. class. Miss Knight and Miss Morris were the teachers. They divided us girls into pairs and had us all line up to wait our turn for the Dash.
Soon came mine and my opponent’s turn. I don’t remember who my opponent was. Just some girl who, naturally, was faster than me. Miss Knight did her loud “Ready—Set—Go!” thing, and we sprightly runners sprinted off. I’m pretty sure my opponent made it all the way down to the finish line, without noticing that I had collapsed in agony to the ground at probably 20 yards. I fell in anguish not because I was a wimp, but because something was legitimately wrong with me.
My legs felt like they were on literal fire. My calves and foot arches, personified, were screeching and wailing as if they were tied up and burning at the stake. It was the worst physical feeling I think I have ever felt in my whole life, even till this day. Remember how I never cried about being the loser at the children’s foot races? Well I was crying now, not because I was the technical 50 Yard Dash loser, but because my lower limbs were atrocities. All my peers may have been gawking and stunned at my sudden fallen state, but my physique felt too slaughtered for me to blush in bashfulness. All I wanted to do was go home. Or die. Oh my.
Now I understand why I was invited to join Miss Morris’s awesome and elite weightlifting class that spanned for the second half of the school year. Not necessarily because I was an elite youth, but because the P.E. teachers pitied my legs and wanted to help strengthen them.
See, here’s what the deal was with my legs. If you know me personally, one of the chief things you know about me is that my legs are two of the longest your eyes did e’er behold. Since the dawn of the Alisonian dynasty, likely from my infancy onward, my leg bones grew remarkably faster than my leg muscles did. In fact, the muscles ate the bones’ dust, and it eventually took a real toll on me, in junior high, as I have just described to you.
Back in the day, when I was that four-year-old at the family reunions, I would walk around on my tippy-toes all the time, as if it were a method to somehow alleviate the leg issues that were then unbeknownst to me and everyone else. Fast-forwarding to the time when I had just had my 50 Yard Dash incident… My parents and I explained to the podiatrist that tippy-toes was the primary way I walked when I was itty bitty, and the occasional way I currently walked. The podiatrist said that that made sense, and he gave me a couple pairs of special shoe inserts, which were designed to comfort me in my coping with actually painful growing pains. Additionally, he showed me how to do certain calf stretches that would aid me significantly. All his help and counsel worked; I faithfully did what he prescribed, and I turned out just fine. Even nowadays I continue to do the stretches because it just plumb feels good (when back in that yesteryear it felt like a %&*^#$@!).
It took many, many moons for my feet and my legs’ muscles and bones to finally become kosher with one another. When I had morphed into a high school student, my friend Tyler wished for me to join the cross-country team with him. He invited me to train with him during the final few summer weeks preceding the upcoming school year. I tried it out, but very quickly decided to quit. I bailed on him. I felt bad about bailing on him, but I did it anyway. I still had a grudge against running, largely because of what running ferociously did to me on that disgustingly horrific 50 Yard Dash Day eons prior.
I didn’t evolve (dissolve) into a lazy tub of lard, though. I stayed pretty active, even though my activities didn’t have much to do with running. I was a karate kid, a hiker, a hooligan, a swimmer, and a volleyball chica. But running was still my bane. And would continue to be my bane until…
…a year-and-a-half ago or so. Yes, less than two years ago, a really, really, really strange urge bloomed within me and caused me to register for a gazillion 5K’s, 10K’s, and half marathons (I do not think I am ready for full marathons yet). Registration season has lighted upon us again, and now I have at least three noteworthy races all queued up. What in the world? What in heaven’s name has gotten into me? Why, if Younger Alison could see me now, Younger Alison would keel completely over!
But the Alison Of The Now is happy with her new running lifestyle. Exceedingly glad. She (me) still doesn’t consider herself to be a “true runner,” for she apparently would rather just up n’ run down a mountain for thirteen miles than rigorously train for it. However, several people have said they do consider Alison Of The Now to be a true runner for the same reason!
At any rate, I do get such a joyful kick out of running races, especially when the course weaves down majestic mountains, through gorgeous nature, on a pleasantly warm and sunshiny day. And now that running has received my conversion—as well as my forgiveness, for all the hullabaloo it had put me through—I somehow feel like a more well-rounded person, physically, mentally, and spiritually. I feel like I can successfully accomplish hard things in life when need be, because half marathons are hard, and I can accomplish those quite niftily.
I also feel like I’ve built friendships that will last forever, because of the running lifestyle I’ve chosen to live. Some of my dearest friends are those who have shared many a glorious finish-line experience with me, and are the proud recipients of the same medals of honor that I own.
MAN it’s a great life, with its foot races and all its joys, and I can’t wait to run some more “halfies” with some more “dearies”!
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