Running. And the Changes.
As I struggle through my transition from a social runner to a solitary runner, it’s helpful to remember just how much my transition from non-runner to runner changed my life. For the better, of course.
For the way better.
The physical changes alone were remarkable. I’ve never been overweight, but I had gained about five pounds every five years since leaving college nearly 25 years ago. I wasn’t completely sedentary, but I’d feel the soreness for several days after any exertions, whether it was helping a friend move or playing some basketball after work. Regular exercise just wasn’t a thing for me.
After a few months of running three days a week, I had dropped about five pounds — a weight I’ve since maintained for almost 20 years — and my pants waist size went from 33 to 31 inches.
Even more surprising, at least to me, were the changes in my diet. My wife and daughters and I didn’t eat badly, but in addition to our whole-grain rice and pasta, we did lean on prepared foods quite a bit — jarred spaghetti sauce, the panoply of Trader Joe’s frozen foods like vegetable bird nests and shu mai and orange chicken, and, of course, pizza on Friday nights. But once I started running, I found I didn’t want the fried foods and heavy sauces any longer. So I began making steamed vegetables and grilled lean meats to go with a baked sweet potato, hold the butter and sour cream and brown sugar and, well, everything. I wouldn’t say I craved whole foods, but they were the meals that sated me best, so they were the meals we ate.
Which isn’t to say I’m one of those food purists. I have a sweet tooth — a very big one — so I’ll always seek out Peanut M&Ms and Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups and Snickers and Twix and ice cream bars and cookies and cakes. But even with those transgressions, I think my nutrition over the past couple decades has been pretty solid.
I also noticed that the migraines that had come once every few weeks now only plagued me a couple times a year, usually when I was dehydrated or drinking early in the day (I don’t drink much, but even a couple beers or mimosas before evening would mean a headache for me). And while getting enough sleep continues to challenge me, the quality of the six hours I usually get improved — I’m not nearly as restless as I was before I ran.
So, yeah, my physical health has definitely improved. But that makes sense, right? Physical exercise yields improved physical results. Not groundbreaking.
What I didn’t anticipate were the changes to my emotional health.
I do read with interest the articles about how lonely middle-aged men feel. Apparently, it’s common for men of my age to feel isolated because they don’t have other people, particularly other men, with whom to share their time, thoughts, and energy. I read those articles with intellectual empathy, but that’s just not my experience, and I give full credit to running.
I started running as an adolescent, though I didn’t know it.
I watched Frank Shorter win gold in the Olympic marathon in 1972 and thought at the time how cool it would be to run a marathon. The fact that I was small, slight, and pretty pale probably had a lot to do with my appreciation — I didn’t look like sprinters or boxers or shot putters, but I did kind of look like Frank Shorter (sans the 70s mustache — I was only twelve!). So on Boxing Day 2003 when Roger, the Englishman I’d just met (at the house of Tony, another Englishman I’d just met), said he wanted to run a marathon to mark turning forty the following year, well, I was well-primed by my twelve-year-old self. Tony said he didn’t want to run a marathon, but he did want to get into better shape, and we were off.
I spent three, four, five, even six hours a week running with Roger and Tony while we trained for the Death Valley Marathon in December 2004. Plus an hour or so on Sundays drinking coffee with them. It was inevitable that we’d share our stories, our thoughts and ideas, and even our hopes because something has to fill all that time.
Having met them just once prior to starting our training — and over mulled wine at that — I couldn’t know that they’d become fast friends during that year (tight fast, not speed fast — we are mid-packers in our races!). We forged our friendship through shared experience certainly, but also because of the authentic, generous, curious, and very funny people both Roger and Tony are. (Roger would want me to add handsome, but that feels a bit like gilding the lily.)
And it turns out that Tony is very, very social. He has a wide network of charming friends, as interesting and honest and kind (and I suppose as handsome) as he is. So our circle of runners grew, and then invitations to join poker nights and book clubs and midweek coffees followed, and I found myself immersed in a community of mostly men my age with a variety of life experiences and perspectives that combined my core values of tolerance and respect for others with delightfully robust senses of humor. I have not lacked for regularly-stimulating company for all those years.
So much of my social life has been built on the foundation laid by running with Roger and Tony. And as I find myself in a new place without that structure, without that community, I need to remind myself that this experience, also forged through running, can be transformative as well. It will be unfamiliar, but very much in keeping with the independent vibe of my new home.
And we’ll see how that changes me.
