My Minneapolis Summer: The Woes of a Jogger

As a new employee at The Company, I’m often asked what I do for fun.

While the legitimate answer is, I skype with my boyfriend, snack on high calorie chocolate bits, and learn to fist pump while watching Jersey Shore with the Roommate, that is not actually the answer these people are looking for. No, they want a grown up, big girl hobby.

The only answer I have for them is ” I love reading and I run.”

“oh, you’re a runner.” I usually nod, but truthfully, inside I feel like a fraud.

To me, a runner has a six pack of abc and wakes up at 5 am to do an eight mile loop before work. A runner has muscular legs (not bony ones) and never gets winded.  A runner actually enjoys energy bars and does not want to bulimia them up after taking one bite. A runner doesn’t get injured, a runner doesn’t touch the elliptical, a runner lives and breathes, well, running.

I, on the other hand, huff and puff my way through training. My legs are more bone than muscle, my feet have so many blisters, I have no choice but to wear flip flops to work tomorrow. I spend most of my run wishing it was over and daydreaming about what food I’m going to eat. I’ve run 5ks and trained for half marathons, but I have never gone running before 7:30 am. Ever. Sleep is much to precious for me. And frankly, when I see someone

running at 4 am, all I can think is, “what is wrong with you!?”

I got into  running/jogging/trotting/fast skipping when I was a kid. I don’t actually remember my first jog, but I do rememeber sitting in my stroller while my mom pounded down a dirt road in my hometown. I was rewarded cheese crackers for sitting in my stroller so quietly. I know I took my first jog solo before I moved when I was in fourth grade, and I started jogging spardoically in middle school. By tenth grade, I was on the cross country team and by the time I graduated, I had a routine that without, I feel awkward and out of sorts. When I’m sad, angry, or lonely, I run. When my parents dropped me off for college, I put on my running shoes and those shoes were the first things I grabbed when I learned my classmate died. I ran three 8 minute miles on a treadmill the day my high school boyfriend and I concluded we weren’t going to make it, and I was on the treadmill when my college boyfriend texted me for the first time (and later, on the same treadmill when he asked me for a date–I nearly fell off in my moment of glee).

My first morning in Minnesota, I woke up at 8 and my mom and I jogged. Minneapolis has an amazing (and one has to think a little useless in a City that’s frozen for 8 months of out of the year) trail of running and biking paths. I realized, jogging by the river (seriously, they should save their money and put in heated, underground jogging tunnels), that I’d be fine for the summer. If the company sucked and my  roommate sucked and my boyfriend never visited, well, at least all of these winding, curvy trails would keep me busy

.

In most families, I would be a weirdo, the black sheep. And while I would argue that in my family I am indeed a black sheep, exercise is actually something my parents and I have in common. On springbreak this year, my dad and I were trapped inside a tiny condo as it rained outside. Both of us expressed immediate relief when my mom invited us to drive an hour to the hotel she had a business conferance at, just to use the gym. Cliff and I drove to the work out room twice in three days. And we, the two thriftiest people you’ll ever meet, even happily paid the toll road fee (well, Cliff complained. But that was to be expected.)

My life is scheduled around my running time. If I have a late night run planned, I stop eating at a certain, cancel all plans with friend, DVR the Disney channel, and go at it. If I’m running early, I have to go to bed earlier, eat a bigger dinner, and make sure to set an alarm that wakes me (and everyone else in my immediate vicinity) up bright and early. I plan my class schedule, my work schedule, and even my TV schedule around running. I even only eat certain foods on certain days because running on a tummy of Indian food is just one experience I don’t need to repeat. 

I guess the morale of the story is, my running shoes and I go everywhere together. Well, my jogging shoes. I’m not a runner, but I want to be one when I grow up. If I grow up, that is.