The Perpetual Beginner

I have been a beginner runner for over 10 years now. It seems like a contradiction, but it's true. 

I started running in 8th grade, the result of a spontaneous response to a school announcement calling all those interested in Cross Country to meet in room 21A. I was sitting with a friend of mine in the library, wasting time before homeroom. The loudspeaker crackled out the invitation. I stared at it, then immediately gathered my stuff to go. My friend looked at me and said, "you have got to be kidding me". To this day, I don't know what made me do it. The only thing I remember thinking was, "hey, I could do that!"

And thus I donned, for the very first time, the title of BEGINNER RUNNER. I had never run for the sake of running before. My sister, Emily, did. She was track pro, very athletic. I was a gangly, goofy creative type who wasn't quite done playing with Barbies. I didn't know I should be pulling my long hair back into a ponytail when running - I just ran with it flopping about. I didn't know you should wear a sports bra. I just ran in what I had on during school. 

Oh, and I quickly learned how agonizingly painful it can be. Everyday at practice, I would think to myself, "I'm never doing this again. What was I thinking. I'm never, EVER doing this again." But I did. When I raced, I gave it everything I had. At the end of my first race, I sprinted to the finish line, gasping and gulping for air, my lungs burning, my legs all rubbery, and collapsed on the ground. 

After that cross-country season was over, I really didn't do it again - cross country, anyway. Cross-country was a fall sport, and I was always in the fall play.  I moved on to track, mostly because my sister did it. I was horrible. Really, not exaggerating, horrible. And from there on out, I swore off running for awhile.

My freshman year of college, I pulled on my running shoes for the first time in years. For the second time in my life, I donned the title of BEGINNER RUNNER. I pounded the pavement once again, this time with my hair pulled back and the appropriate sports wear on. Oh, those first few weeks hurt. How many times did I want to stop? But I had weight to lose, I had a runner's high to gain, and I reveled in the solidarity. Running became my escape. It became my daily challenge and I quickly climbed to an average of 5-6 miles a day. Running for me had changed, I had changed, but I still had to start at mile one, breaking through those first five awful weeks before my body warmed up and become more conditioned. 

Time passed, and I transitioned from MSU to Asbury. My running stopped. Once settled in Asbury, I strapped on those shoes again - BEGINNER RUNNER again. Mile one again, and all that goes with it. The soreness, the out-of-shape feeling, the pain, the gasping. Eventually, I got better. My endurance increased along with my mileage; I truly loved running the Kentucky hills. In fact, I was so comfortable that one day I ran well over 7 miles on a lark - and had to stop running out of injury. 

And so the pattern continued. I would run for awhile, I would build up my mileage, my strength and endurance, start to aim for a race or a mile marker, and something would stop me. I would get sick, I would get busy, I would get injured (the worst offender), and have to wait and wait and wait some more to be able to strap up my shoes and go running. And I would start again, as soon as I could, but I would start back at mile one, at BEGINNER RUNNER. 

It's frustrating to have to start over. It means having to struggle and hurt and hang off the bottom rung AGAIN. It means exhaustion, doubts, pain and insecurity, and a reminder of it all with every step you take on a run, knowing you were once beyond this. 

However, as I've thought about it, It's not unlike life. Transitions happen, grooves get thrown off. Here I am, beginning life again in Sacramento. A new chapter, I've been calling it, but it feels like starting back at mile one. I don't have a job, I have to find one. I don't have any friends, I have to make them. I don't have much money, I don't have a church and I don't have a clue how to find my way around the city. I have great dreams and goals, but I'm nowhere close to them here. Mile one. It's painful. I'm lonely. I have a lot of doubts about my ability to gain a job and friends. I'm insecure about how I fit here. I'm worried I'll never attain my goals. I'm exhausted with trying to find anything I need in this city. Nothing is easy. I've wanted to leave so many times. 

There are two pictures of me at my very first cross-country race. In one picture, I'm beckoning the photographer, clearly excited. In the other, I'm at the start of the race in a runner's pose, beaming. I was a BEGINNER RUNNER in those two pictures. I was about to run 3.5 miles for the first time in my life. I didn't know what to expect, and I certainly didn't know that I was going to end the race gasping for breath and collapsing. But NOTE: I wasn't sulking in the background. I wasn't clinging to the other runners around me, or the photographer for that matter (my mother). The picture wasn't taken from the car as I climbed in, refusing to run the race. Nope. I was completely psyched. You couldn't have dampened that smile if you tried.  

I've put those pictures on my fridge as a reminder to run this race of Sacramento with the same excitement. I'm at mile one, but that doesn't mean I have to spend all day in my apartment worried about the future and depressed at the end of the day. I am choosing to run this race with the same enthusiasm as I ran my first actual race. 

Today I am a BEGINNER RUNNER once again, in many ways. Thanks to another injury several months ago, I have only  recently laced up my running shoes again with a hope and a prayer that neither my knee nor my hip will give me trouble. I ran 20 minutes today, and felt every minute if it. 

I am also a BEGINNER RUNNER in life here in Sacramento. Today I made strides towards accepting life as it is now. I left the apartment, bought some interview pants and polished up my resume. I didn't consume the chocolate chip cookies in my pantry out of loneliness, I ran instead. And I will keep running until I reach the end, having given it my all, gasping for breath, and having built up my endurance to run the next race that comes.