Almost two years ago I
ran my first ever 5K race, at age 42. I’ve
written before about how and why I began running, so I’ll only give the short
version here. My daughter began running
cross country for her junior high team, and I found myself moved to tears at
each meet by these young runners as I watched them push themselves at a sport
that was at once both team-oriented and highly individualized. At the same time, I desperately needed to find
some kind of physical activity to get my mind and body in shape as I dealt with
the increasing stress of caring for a husband with early-onset Alzheimer’s. So after 42 years of not being an athlete, of
never playing an organized sport, I decided to see if I could become a runner.
It has
not been an easy transformation. Although
I loved running sprints in PE classes, I am not naturally a distance
runner. Those early runs were so
horrible, I almost gave up. However, I
persevered, and it soon became clear that, besides good running shoes, I needed
appropriate clothing for this new endeavor.
Now, I don’t know about you, but I am all for any activity which
requires the purchase of some new outfits.
I got some cheap running tights and capris and polyester/spandex
T-shirts that wicked away sweat (of which there was a disturbingly copious
amount), exercise bras, and cushioned running socks. I wear glasses and I quickly realized that I
needed something to block the glare of the sun.
Feeling that I would rather shade my eyes with a brim than with
sunglasses, I looked around for a suitable hat.
I finally found the perfect hat, at my local Goodwill store. After our first (and hopefully only) bout
with head lice this past year (thanks, junior high children!), I’m not sure I would ever again purchase a
secondhand hat, but I bought one that day, a hat that looked like it had never even
been worn. The thing about it that
appealed to me, besides the light, nylon fabric and extra-long brim, was the
logo: Kauai Marathon 2009.
A
marathon in Hawaii. I would never be a marathon runner, I told
myself. Those people are crazy. On my very first run, I barely made it a quarter
mile before I had to stop and walk. 26.2
miles? No way. And traveling to Hawaii was also not in my
immediate future, for a whole slew of reasons.
Still, the hat called to something in me, and so I bought it. I wore it frequently that first year of
learning how to run. It made me feel
legit. I felt a little guilty wearing
it, like I might be giving onlookers a false and inflated impression of my capabilities, but
I wore it anyway. When I wore it, I felt…possibility. Maybe—maybe—someday I could be the kind of person who traveled to Hawaii to run in a
marathon. Maybe I could reinvent myself, after 42 years, into a stronger,
pared-down version of the person I had become.
Maybe my life would not always be as difficult as it was at that moment
in time. Running was definitely teaching
me things about myself: how to persevere
at something I wasn’t naturally good at, how connected mind and body are to
each other, how to be more disciplined.
The hat was a tangible symbol of that learning and of that potential for more.
The
hat not only represented what I could (maybe, possibly, someday) be, it also
felt like my own personal cheerleader (think a peppier, more encouraging
version of the Sorting Hat in Harry Potter).
I thought of the person to whom the hat had previously belonged, of all the
people at the 2009 Kauai Marathon who must have been given or purchased such
hats. There was a whole community of
people out there waiting for me to find them, running people. Even though I was (and am still) a solo runner
most of the time, I could feel them out there, the other runners. One of the things that drew me into running,
during those weeks spent watching junior high kids running their hearts out at
cross country meets, was the way runners and fans supported all those who ran, from the fastest to
the slowest and everyone in between.
Whether I consciously knew it or not, I wanted that—I needed it. Caregiving is lonely and scary and sad, and
running provided me with a membership into a network of people who, though
competitive, know how to lift each other up.
So. This
hat has protected my eyes from bright sun, shielded my glasses from falling
rain, and carried me through the past two-plus years of my running education. It reminds me that whatever is now, whatever I am at this moment, is
not the end of the story. That there is
always more—maybe 26.2 miles more—waiting for me to discover and to do. Some of it, possibly, in Hawaii.
