Running Love

I went for a fantastic long run yesterday with a good friend.  And believe me, there was a day when I thought the words “fantastic” and “long run” did not belong in a sentence together.

I love this friend (I love all my friends), and she’s someone that I don’t get to rub shoulders with very often but really wish that I could.  We go to different churches here in town and have different circles of friends, and our schedules rarely coincide, but she’s someone that I always wish that I could spend more time with.  So I was thrilled when I was able to coerce her into running the half marathon with me because I knew we would get to run together at least a few times before the actual event.

I met my friend in the city after she was done work and we struck out for the path that runs along the river.  It was a pleasure to be (a) running with a friend, and (b) running somewhere that winds and turns, instead on my endless miles of straight grid roads around home.  Pure pleasure.  Even when I was getting tired.  And even when I knew that there were two blisters coming on my toes.

While we ran, we chatted.  About flooding bathrooms, about work, about kids, about sports, about great sports bras, about smearing vaseline in *places* to prevent chaffing.  We ran and we ran and we ran…for not quite 2 hours.  We ate jube jubes, nodded or waved at other runners as we met them on the path, dodged dog poo and wedding parties, and sipped at our gatorade.

And just when I was pretty sure that I was not going to be able to run any more, we charged up the final incline to the spot where we had begun, and we were finished.  And by finished, I mean finished.  There was not a lot of juice left in these legs.

We stretched, changed, and headed over to a small, local coffee shop where I purchased the largest latte I could, and then we sat and visited some more.  And I love that in spite of the fact that we had just been chatting for 2 hours, we still had not run out of things to talk about.  We discussed our changing menstrual cycles, how we wanted our kids to grow up having a good work ethic, how having kids kind of wrecks us – physically and emotionally.  And because I had just run 11 miles with her, I felt ok about sharing the fact that I had to start taking antidepressants after Berry Baby was born, something that I have shared verbally with very few people.  Then we laughed about how during our run we had both wavered between feeling like we could run forever, and realizing that we definitely couldn’t; between feeling invincible and feeling like dying.  And when we left the coffee shop she laughed uncontrollably when I missed the step down because I’d underestimated just how wobbly my jelly legs were.

Those are just some of the reasons that I love running.  It seems to have a way of removing barriers and allowing people to share.  It combines feelings of total elation with feelings of total desperation.  And it always provides a sense of accomplishment, no matter how well or poorly the run went – either I finished a bad run even though I didn’t want to, or I finished well a distance I didn’t think I could, or in spite of a total lack of discipline during a short run, I still managed to run all the way up my nemesis hill without stopping to walk.  And while I like running alone, I certainly love running with a friend.