Why Keep Running?

Two of the most common questions I get asked as a distance runner (behind "Are you actually crazy?" and "why do you hate yourself that much?") are how did you get into running and why do you keep running? 

I ran my first race when I was about seven years old.  I don't mean to brag, but I was basically a natural.  I posted blazing times of 3:39 in the 800m and 7:45 in the 1500, and I hated every second of it.  Initially, I got into it because my older siblings were all runners.  We grew up in a very small town and I have six older siblings, so by the time I came around, it was basically expected that I would be a runner.  I enjoyed running about twice a year, when the middle school track and cross country races came around, but the rest of the time it felt largely like a chore.  I would get out and run two miles a day Monday through Friday if it was a really good week, and I was not especially good at it.  Around eighth grade, my perspective towards running started to shift.  I began looking into transferring to Park City High like my sister had to run for their nationally ranked distance program.  In May, my decision to join the cross country team and run for Park City solidified, and I ran my first workout with them a few weeks into the summer. 

My freshman year, I started falling in love with running.  I was running for a team for the first time in my life, and I found the drive to compete for them.  I still wasn't entirely serious about the sport-often, myself and the other freshmen would run to the Starbucks a mile from the school and get hot cocoa to pass the time before running back, and I didn't even own a basic stopwatch-but I started seeing more success with it than I had in the past.  My coaches introduced me to the idea that running could pay for a college education if I kept at it and improved enough, and kept me motivated through 400m repeats and ten mile long runs with bribery in the form of donuts and promises of faster races to come.   

#HeelStrikeClub

The picture above is a taste of the moment and the season when I had my first real breakthrough with running.  My sophomore year, I upped my mileage to a whopping 30 miles a week and dropped over a minute in the 5k.  Suddenly, after finishing my freshman track season with better times than I had ever expected to see in my life and qualifying for the state meet, I had a real belief in the phrase that my coach repeated countless times-Running can take you places.  The idea of becoming a professional athlete and representing the USA on the world stage started entering my thoughts and motivating me to train harder and take running more seriously.  The sophomore 3A state record was reasonably close to the times I had been racing all season, and it was my goal going into the state cross country meet.  After I reached that goal, I set my sights on winning the freshman/sophomore allwest race at the Footlocker West regional meet.

Once I realized that I wanted to run professionally someday and began to really love the sport, I started preparing more for the prospect of running D1 in college.  I upped my mileage again, this time to 50 miles a week, and started contacting coaches.  I qualified for NXN for the first time my junior year, set a school record in the 3200m at Arcadia, and signed with Montana State before qualifying for NXN a second time my senior year.  Since coming to college, I have set personal bests in all of my events and brought my weekly mileage up to 70 miles a week, placed sixth at the USATF juniors with a personal best time in the 5k off of a month of base easy runs, started going to rehab or weights four times a week, and set my sights on becoming a D1 All-American.  I have an all-consuming desire to continue improving, and turn some heads before my five years of eligibility are spent.

Between all of these events and successes that encouraged me to keep going, there were also some fairly large blows.  After each one, I have had several friends ask when I am going to give up this whole running thing and pursue something worthwhile or suggest that perhaps I should stop abusing my body and just relax for awhile.  The first time I ever questioned my future in running came when I got overtrained my sophomore year and spent the last month of the track season exhausted and barely able to race.  It came again when I got sick for my junior cross country state meet, overtrained for the track state meet, had an anxiety attack before my senior state meet and spent the first mile hyperventilating, and got whooping cough for my final state track meet-one of my coaches used to joke that I should get the "Most Qualified Athlete to Never Win a State Meet Award".  My first year at MSU, I got injured for the first time in my running career, straining my hamstring just two days before the cross country conference championship.  The same injury came up a year later in my most recent cross country, with overcompensation for my left hamstring at the conference meet resulting in a double hamstring strain for the last two weeks of the season.  Laced into most of my running career have been anxiety and depression, lying dormant at some times and making life in general but most especially trials in running doubly as difficult.

There were several times throughout my running career that I seriously considering quitting.  Going for that first run again after the end-of-season break at the end of my junior year was one of the hardest things I have ever done.  I entertained the idea of finding some other way to pay for education, and considered how much easier academics would become without athletics eating up so much of my time.

So why do I keep running?

Because at the core, I am a competitor.  I have a love for running that outweighs any trial that it could bring.  I have a need to push my body to its limits, and seek improvement every day.  I was sick a few weeks back, and the few days that I had to miss runs just about drove me crazy.  Running makes me happy.  It gives me something to strive for, it brings me a greater respect for my body and what it is capable of, it grants me clarity of mind, and makes me believe in myself to a level I never knew was possible.  I will never settle for anything less than I know I am capable of, and could certainly never let a setback make me hang up my running shoes forever.  As my AP Bio teacher once told me, we as distance runners are warriors, and it is simply not in the heart of a warrior to give up.