Perhaps it's the oxytocin pumping through my body (it may just be old age), but I've been waxing nostalgically this September of my 25th year of running. Gulp. No, I was not a child prodigy who began running at age 3, so 25 years of running just makes me...well...elderly.
I have began thinking about how fortunate I have been to be a runner, and to have embraced and enjoyed running during it's near infancy. In that vein, I compiled a list of all that strikes my nostalgic fancy....
1. I miss my college Cross Country Team. I miss that they could understand how "Bust A Move" could only be about passing opponents on the XC trail....
2. I miss the smell of grapes as we would round the corner for home on the Saint Anselm XC course. It indelibly in my mind will signify the finish.
3. I miss Ed Sheehan...dearly. The first person to use the words "talent" and my name in the same sentence, even though I thought a 200 meter indoor track was a quarter of a mile...
4. I miss Phil Riley and Will Mason (too soon gone), and Tom Carroll jeering me as I tried desperately to hang with them on runs...
5. I miss Tom Hurley and his spiral bound notebook. Long before the internet, Tom knew every stat on every runner in New England. What a classy man.
6. I miss Sunday morning runs at "Wang Towers"
7. I miss drinking beer and eating pretzels with Lisa Senatore after she had put me through my paces on the track...
8. I miss working for a running company where I could run with the CEO at lunchtime and he actually cared about my running...
9. I miss the way the John Carson Race was. Don't get me wrong, I love that it has raised so much money for a scholarship, but there was something so special about those of us that ran it in the beginning purely for bragging rights. No money - we were all connected to John Carson in some way, and we just wanted to honor him as best we could. The winner got their choice of a steak or swordfish grilled by the race director, Bob Sullivan.
10. I miss the Cawley 2 mile series.
11. I miss belly dancers at the East End Race.
12. I miss going for a run, smiling and waving at other runners, and they would smile and wave back. This pretty much never happens when I run anymore, even though I see so many more runners.
13. I miss the simplicity of races: run as hard as you can, stay on your feet, and let the cards fall where they may.
14. I miss the Hockomock Swamp Rat and his complete disregard for popular opinion or political correctness. Some girls dream of being on the cover of Cosmo - me...the "Rat". Never was I more flattered to be completely ridiculed. (I love #levelrenner, and do appreciate their old school approach)
15. I miss my 2008 running partners. You know who you are. We killed each other in a synchronized, single minded goal of a sub 2:48. I absolutely savored every second of all of it.
16. I miss my old body. My feet are riddled with arthritis, hammer toes, and my hammies are just shredded. I miss bounding out the door, bridled only by lack of time.
17. I miss the innocence of running - before there was the Central Park rapist, and Boston 2013, there was simply...blissful, carefree running.
Tonight as I turned the corner for home, round the power lines, summer's last gasp exuded the essence of grapes on the wane. I inhaled deeply, and kicked it to the finish line.
This time, though, the finish line was my daughter's precious face, pressed to the glass window, awaiting my arrival. The past 25 years have been quite a wild and wonderful ride. I can only hope the next 25 years will be half as wonderful, and that I am here to enjoy them. I hope my girls know to always be the first to smile, and that they find something that will always fire that light that gets in their eyes.
"Anything in life worth doing is worth overdoing. Moderation is for cowards". - Navy Seal recitation in "Lone Survivor"
