[UPDATE, April 2022: this post is more about my running fixation than my health, but just recently I had a CT scan of my heart and learned I have signs of atherosclerosis (calcium plaque in my arteries) and unless I take steps I could have a heart attack. I thought my diet was good, but maybe not. Although both my parents lived long lives, it could also be heredity. Anyway, regular exercise and low cholesterol levels are not necessarily a guarantor of a healthy heart. I urge everyone when they get older to have a heart CT scan. They only cost about $100 and could make a big difference.]
Last week I donated blood. The Blood Center folks always check vital signs before inserting the needle. For the third visit in a row after taking my vital signs, the nurse had to phone the doctor to “clear me.”
Although my blood pressure was slightly high (blame coffee, age, and Washington D.C.), that wasn’t the issue. It was my pulse: only 44 beats per minute. Halfway to dead. A minimum pulse of 50 is required to donate.
Before phoning the phantom doctor, the nurse tried to get it up. “Think of something exciting,” she instructed me. So of course I concentrated on hardcore sex.
“I can’t believe it,” she said after taking my pulse a second time. “It actually went down.”
Fortunately, my visit to the bloodsuckers wasn’t wasted, because Dr. Mysterioso “cleared me” after hearing that I was a daily runner. Evidently runners and other athletes have lower heart rates.
This latest longitudes yammer isn’t to puff myself up. No athlete am I. Like my man Lou Reed, I’m just an Average Guy. But running is a big part of my life, as you’ll soon see.
Back in high school, inspired by running icons like Frank Shorter and Steve Prefontaine, I ran cross-country for one season. Then in college I got sidetracked with my studies: sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll. (The sex part was a distant third.) Then I continued my studies while living the single life in Florida, but also began jogging along the beach. I needed to work off the cheap beer from the previous weekend.
I didn’t commence a regular jogging routine until 1992 at age 34. I’d been laboring several years at a strenuous outdoors job, then suddenly found myself behind a desk doing sedentary work. This abrupt venue change triggered some long-suppressed anxieties. Then the anxieties triggered depression.
Running helped lessen my mental struggles. I found that—once I dragged myself out of the recliner and stepped outside—the sustained cardiovascular activity provided by running helped me escape the inside of my head. And during the in-between times, the bleak moments weren’t quite so bleak.
Therapy and benzodiazepines also played a role, but there’s no doubt running helped pull me out of my deepening funk.
In 1993 I got hired by a company that co-sponsored a popular local road race: the Cincinnati Heart Mini-Marathon. I’d been jogging regularly now for a while, so I registered. This race was the turning point. It was like a giant party without the booze. And instead of a hangover afterwards, I experienced the oft-cited “runner’s high.” I had so much fun running those 9.3 miles downtown, I began doing smaller 5-kilometer races (3.1 miles). Then 10K races. Then marathons (26.2 miles).
At this stage—before age began chipping away at my testosterone level and male ego—speed was paramount. Pushing myself to set PRs became a minor hobby. Sometimes, the night before a race, I dreamt of being pulled by a giant conveyor belt strapped around my waist. (And sometimes I was sprawled on the edge of the freeway and clawing gravel with my hands.)
My speed peak arrived in 1998 at age 40 when I qualified for the Boston Marathon, the granddaddy of road races. In Boston the following year I set a personal best time of 3:11 (three hours, eleven minutes).
My times soon slowed, but the marathons continued. Altogether I’ve run 32 marathons in 22 different states. (It would have been more, but I had two multi-year marathon layoffs due to back trouble…probably running-related.)
These days I average about 18 miles a week. This includes an eight-mile run every Saturday morning on the nearby Little Miami River Scenic Trail, where I’ve co-adopted a four-mile segment. I supplement my volunteer hours by scooping up litter that the fair-weather slobs have discarded.
My weeknight runs are two miles through my neighborhood. This is also social time. My wife asked me recently, “How did you get to know this person?” I told her to join me on a run and I’d show her how. (She declined.)
Running is my TM and yoga combined; it strengthens both my body and brain. I can’t imagine what my BP reading would be without it. Also, as with mountain backpacking, I like the outdoors solitude. I get a lot of writing ideas while running alone. The first few paragraphs of this essay came while running along Little Miami.
There have been occasions when I couldn’t run, such as after breaking my ankle in 1995, or after surgery in 2019. The sudden indolence actually brought on physical withdrawal.
So that’s where the “running junkie” in the title comes from. It’s an addiction. I realize running isn’t for everyone. Some people can’t run due to bad knees or back or other health constraint. Others, like my brother, claim running is “boring.” Some have exercise alternatives like walking, bicycling, swimming, or weightlifting…all good.
Still others enjoy massaging their gluteus maximus with a recliner cushion. Hey, I figure if you remain undistracted, that’s good too. In these digital-compulsive days, doing absolutely nothing is vastly underrated. As we say on the Appalachian Trail, Hike Your Own Hike. As we said in the Sixties, Do Your Own Thing.
My thing is running. See you on the sidewalk.
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