In high school, I ran between 40 and 50 miles every week for three years. That doesn't include summers off and the coldest parts of winter, when it was less. But, all in all, I probably ran a little over 3,000 miles in the last three years of high school. I ran a 10-mile race in under an hour, the 5k under or around 16 minutes, the mile in the high 4:30s and the half-mile in a little under two minutes.
In the last four years, I've run maybe 50 miles. Down from over 3,000. My only race was the Rena Rowan Ribbon Run, which I finished in just under 19 minutes, in 25th place. I got beat, badly, by a 50-year-old man. It was almost enough to make me want to get serious again.
Why did I quit running? I'm not sure. I took time off and never came back. I had some offers to run at Division I and II programs -- nowhere important, but a few votes of confidence from coaches. I certainly was never on the level that would have let me compete at a big school, nor am I sure if I ever could have been. I have short legs and my frame is slender, but not the sinewy wire of the fastest.
Maybe I quit because of my coach. An ex-Marine who, for a moment in his youth, had been one of the better long distance runners in the collegiate ranks, he still went out and ran 13 or 14 miles a few times a week until his legs started to bother him. Halfway through a 10-mile race in Flint, Mich., I turned to a teammate of mine and asked, "Is that Coach Sleeman way in front of us?" We passed him around the five-mile mark, but we also had 50 years on him.
Three and a half years of being told that I wasn't fast enough, didn't work hard enough, could be better, took its toll. There was plenty of encouragement, telling me that I was fast enough, worked very hard, was doing very well, was a good captain -- but every time I tried to go out and run, there was a little voice inside my head saying, "Fuck you," to everyone who had pushed. After my last race senior year, I put my shoes on the shelf. My little brother borrowed my racing flats to run a marathon last fall.
Only now, four years later, do I feel comfortable writing about it. I'm starting to feel the urge again, the pull of hitting the road with one foot in front of the other. It hasn't become irresistible yet, but the little voice is there. It says to run in secret, early in the morning, and not to tell many people -- not to get in shape, not to lose weight, not to build stamina or to lower blood pressure -- just to put on shorts, fasten my key with a safety pin and leave.
Three miles at first, maybe four, trying for around 8:30 pace. Nothing too fast. Yet. Maybe some mile repeats on the track or around campus, if things go well. But don't tell anyone; the telling ruins it, makes it self-conscious and aware and for a reason. It's a lot like writing.
Maybe that's the thing I've figured out about myself in the last few years -- that what I do, I do for myself above all, and, that without that reason, the doing doesn't feel right.
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I wanted to take a few words to thank my readers this semester -- I wish it could have been longer. Thank you for your e-mails, crazed postings to the Web site, hellos on Locust Walk or at bars. My column has gotten me in far less trouble than I thought it might -- certainly I've made a few enemies, but, well, I don't think anybody writes a column to make friends. But, friends and enemies alike, thank you for reading.
To my parents, thanks for picking up the tab for the last four years. That, and, you know, birthing and raising me. I love both of you very much, and appreciate your encouragement, though I wish you'd quit bugging me about my plans for the next five years. They're not totally set -- there, you have it in writing.
To my closest friends -- you know who you are, as do I, and what that means. Thank you.
To my newspaper -- you're a tough bitch to love, no one would argue, but to the staff, editors and alums of the DP, thank you for giving me a column, stories and the $1.50 an hour I made as an editor. I consider myself well-paid in all of it. But deadline approaches, and I must go.
For No Man, Drew Armstrong...
Drew Armstrong is a 2003 College graduate from Ann Arbor, Mich., and former copy editor of The Daily Pennsylvanian.
