Running for Love
When I was in my twenties, I started running. I’d fallen in love with a jock in spite of my lack of athletic ability. He did triathlons, and trained for them constantly.
I used to dance, when we could afford it or when a rich family member felt sorry enough for me to pay for lessons. But I was never very good. I studied with the guy who taught John Travolta, his sister was in my tap class, and Paula Abdul was an alumnae as well. When I was 14 I passed out doing chaīné turns across the floor. When I came to the teacher was shaking his head and staring at my boobs.
“With a body like that,” he said, “It’s a shame you can’t dance.”
The fact that I wasn’t devastated was reason enough for me to quit. I was paying for my own lessons by then with the money I made at Malings shoes. I’d lied about my age and then sold enough Megan and Penelope and Alice styles that when they found out I was only 14, they didn’t fire me. I lied to Florsheim 9 months later, and it was the same thing. By the time they knew I was now 15, I’d hocked enough Royal Imperials to keep Mr. Florsheim flush, so they kept me through the 12th grade.
Sales were my thing, exercise and school weren’t. In high school, I snuck home to watch All My Children every day. I spent all the time I wasn’t working in front of the TV or naked and stoned by my friend Diane’s pool.
But at 22 I found myself very in love. He was a jock and a scholar, and I had to get my shit together. So I stopped watching soaps and started to run. Running I found had it’s own perks, not the least of which was shopping. Cute dolphin shorts in neon colors, racy singlets that showed off a neon bra underneath, special wicking socks and the necessary shoes. There was a store in Encino that specialized in running shoes. It was called Phidippides who was some greek god of running or something. They had all kinds of foot balms and singlets and socks and most of all, they spent how ever much time it took to find you the perfect pair of shoes. The first pair I ever bought were Nikes. After at least 75 minutes of the lanky sales guy explaining and tying and untying laces and slipping so many shoe’s on and off my feet, you would have thought I was an evil step sister, he told me I only had to go up 1 size rather than the 1 1/2 I’d need to go up in all the other shoes in order to avoid loosing my toenails as I increased my distance.
“Oh no,” I wanted to tell him. “I won’t be running far! I’m just doing this for a guy. As soon as I make him fall in love with me, these things are going to The Salvation Army or one of my friends who finds herself in love with a jock.” But I stayed mum and shelled out the $40 or $50 or $65 that I didn’t have for the dang things, and I started to jog. Slowly at first, I was slow and kvetchy, “Ugh it’s so hot,” I’d tell my new man. “You’re going too fast. Where’s the fire?” I’d say.
“I gotta train,” he’d yell back to me. “Just do 2 miles today, I’ll meet you at the house.”
2 Miles!? I thought as I watched his back get smaller and smaller. The slight twist in his waist as he ran, showing off the quarterback he’d been, the shortstop, the center, and I ran a little faster.
It took a long time for me to fall in love with running. It took years of a love-hate relationship. Twisted ankles, popped discs and lost toenails in spite of the huge shoe size. But I love it, I do. I still don’t commit fully. Many days I will walk my run completely. Most days, actually, now that I live in a hilly place and prefer podcasts to mind-numbing music. But I still call over my shoulder to my family, “I’m going for a run.” And once in a while I do. I’ve earned the right to call it a run. I have 3 half marathons under my belt and countless 5 and 10Ks. I have race t-shirts that I never wear but can’t throw away because they say something about me. They say I can dance. They say I do what is hard and painful even when I don’t want to. They say that kid in the tenth grade who spent more time high and naked than she did in school is not such a disappointment after all. She got it together, she turned out ok.
