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Chapter 2

Private Runner

After I completed week two, I was ready to tell Ed. By then, he and I had been married for almost two decades. Ed, my best friend and confidant, has the brains and motivation. I have the harebrained ideas. When I decided we should move to New Mexico so I could study writing with Natalie Goldberg, Ed eagerly accepted the challenge. When I wanted to turn our basement into a meditation studio, Ed moved the furniture. And when I wound up in the psych ward on the weekend after our first wedding anniversary, a surprise that might have made other men flee, Ed didn’t falter. Through pastels, piano lessons, dance classes, dog training, and weird diets, not to mention enough types of therapy to fill an encyclopedia, Ed remained by my side. Still, I feared telling him because of how much I value his opinion.

He and I sat in our galley kitchen, at the rectangular table, eating the Italian sausage and lentils he’d prepared. Thankfully, he loves to cook. If he didn’t, we’d starve. I open cans, operate the microwave, and wash the dishes, but because of my inability to focus, when I cook, the fire alarm usually goes off. Once, I even warped a pressure cooker. Ed prefers I not cook so I don’t ruin his expensive pans.

His long-sleeved, red button-down matched his brown and red oxfords. The red collar against his clear, fair skin made it glow. He’d rolled the shirt cuffs up, exposing his muscular forearms, which flexed when he reached for his fork.

I looked out the picture window to our tree-lined street where I’d been secretly jogging. Our oak had begun to bud, pushing the previous year’s leaves onto the still brown grass.

“I started running again,” I said.

As Ed knew, I’d run before, but never stuck with it. Once in high school. Once in college. Once during the late 1980s and early 1990s, and for a few short weeks in 2008. In high school, I ran to lose weight. None of my high school pictures show me even slightly overweight, but I thought of myself as enormous. I pounded down the road thinking, This sucks. Band practice and daydreaming about boys were more important.

In college, I ran with my friend Priscilla up and down the brick streets of Athens, Ohio. The Appalachian hills were daunting. I gasped for air and didn’t love it. I hated my body for not being able to travel along the ground swiftly. When a bout of suffocating depression struck, I abandoned everything not related to academics. I graduated and went on to law school, but stopped running.

In the late 1980s, while practicing law for a small firm, I sat at a desk all day, feeling fat and disillusioned. I decided to run up the hill near my house. I made it halfway before I needed to walk, but when I reached the top, I ran again. This time, I felt the joy and kept running for a few years. I ran on the track at the health club and, with our two dogs, through our suburban neighborhood, dodging neighbors’ golden retrievers and small children.

When Ed and I got together, we moved closer to my office, and I ran around a nearby park. I lost weight and felt fit. I also lifted weights and, for a time, thought of myself as healthy. But some internal switch flipped. I was not yet diagnosed as bipolar but was likely hypomanic. When I grew dangerously thin, a therapist suggested treatment for eating disorders. I continued running, but with no joy, and I dieted compulsively. Running swung from something I enjoyed to a dangerous obsession. Eventually, the flat, numb, hollowed-out emptiness of depression took over. I had never expected to run again, and I doubt Ed thought I would either.

I turned to face him. His bright blue eyes were soft and hopeful. Too hopeful.

“Not far and not fast!” I added.

I told him about Kim and Fiona, then explained the kitchen timer and how the dog and I alternated jogging and walking.

He set down his fork and clasped a handful of his more-salt-than-pepper hair the way he does when he’s thinking. This tilted his head and made his jaw look even more square.

“Do you have a goal?” he asked.

I shrugged. “It just feels good to be moving.”

He released the handful of hair, picked up his fork, and continued eating.

“Don’t be a runner,” he said between bites. “Be an interval trainer.”

Ed’s humor tends to be dry, so I waited to make sure he wasn’t joking. He wasn’t. He’d recently read several articles about the effectiveness of interval training and the importance of starting slowly.

I smiled and nodded. He hadn’t said I was too old or fat or that running would ruin my knees. In the past, when asked why I quit running, I’d say “I blew out my knees.” In truth, I gave up from exhaustion. What I was doing now—easing into it, using intervals, running slower than I thought a human being could—bore little resemblance to my running days of the past. Ed sensed that.

He’d seen me try so many diet and exercise regimens that he probably had to guard against hoping that jogging might help my weight and depression. He may have thought it was another phase, like that of the mini-trampoline gathering dust in the basement. My mother had given it to us after it had become a clothes rack at her house. I’d bounced on it religiously for six weeks before the activity grew so boring, I gave up.

I took his lack of questions not as a failure of interest, but a silence caused by his reserved nature. No comment was akin to approval. Plus, he knows how even praise can spin my mind, morphing it into pressure. His stoic encouragement gave me the propulsion to continue.

But the morning I was to attempt week three, I woke thinking, “I can’t.” In this third week, the training plan doubled the time I jogged. I closed my eyes and tried to go back to sleep.

My first few seconds of actual consciousness had been fraught with terrifying projections: me in a black dress at Ed’s funeral or a veterinarian plunging the fatal needle into Morgan’s forepaw. Next came a litany of unpleasant memories: my niece struggling with crutches after her leg was amputated, my mother begging for water before her final surgery, the grip of my father’s hand as a nurse installed a catheter.

In my half-conscious state, I barely noticed Ed opening the bedroom door and leaning down to kiss me goodbye before he left for work. I only half felt Morgan jump onto the bed and curl behind my knees. I snuggled around him, careful not to move too much so he wouldn’t jump down.

Five years before, when Mom met Morgan, she’d said, “You’d pay a hairdresser good money for those highlights,” referring to the beige and rust “angel wings” pattern on his back. Animal Control had found the one-year-old yellow Lab near a freeway interchange. His good looks, combined with kennel cough and excellent behavior, kept him out of the pound and possibly saved his life. They sent him to a veterinarian who fostered dogs. Enough time had passed since our golden retriever, Bodhi, had died that Ed and I were ready for another canine family member. Ed contacted the vet, who brought Morgan to our house for a test visit. While I feared someone was ugly-crying about losing him, after watching the handsome young dog chase a tennis ball in our fenced backyard for half an hour, Ed called the veterinarian and told her not to bother coming back. Mom believed Morgan had escaped when his owners were traveling. She might have been right. Unlike our previous dogs, Morgan whined and cried in the car. In every other respect, he was the consummate gentleman, even so young. He was housebroken, knew all his commands, only destroyed the occasional sofa pillow, and wove himself seamlessly into our lives and hearts.

The warmth and pressure of Morgan’s body pushed away the unpleasant images that had haunted me when I’d first awakened. I peeked out from under the covers at the 1950s mirrored closet doors to see his brown eyes staring back. He stretched out to his full length and thwacked his tail against me, reminding me that some of us are still alive. I am loved and cared for by a good dog, a great man, loving family members, and friends. I rolled over and lifted the covers from my head.

***

I headed to the bathroom. As I sat on the toilet, Mr. Dawg brushed his whiskers against my face. Some people insist that dogs smell your breath from times when wolf mothers returned to the den to throw up a bellyful of food for the puppies to eat. Not my Morgan. He put his snout just close enough to my mouth that I could feel his whiskers graze my lips in the softest gesture. No sloppy kisses or wet jowls from him. His touch was like being tickled for an instant. He may or may not have sniffed, but I doubt he expected me to vomit.

With the snuffling complete, he rubbed against my knees then wiggled beneath my legs against the toilet. Once wedged there, he waited for me to scratch him. He preferred that I scratch between his shoulder blades, as if the identification microchip was working its way out. I worried about these things. My job was to scratch up and down his back with both hands, fingernails digging into his flat, stiff fur. When satisfied, he walked away and curled into a donut shape on the bathroom rug. That was my signal to get off the toilet. Since he had become my trainer and cheerleader, I needed to keep him happy, so I obeyed.

Our “dog therapy” complete, I was ready to face week three. I dressed, picked up the timer, leashed the dog, and went outside.

His comforting presence gave me enough courage to start on our street. I hit the timer. When it was time for double the amount of jogging (three full minutes!), I bent my knees, began slowly, and paced myself. After what I was sure was three minutes, winded, but not exhausted, I checked the timer. Two minutes and thirty seconds. I could do thirty more seconds.

The intervals passed quickly. During the walking periods, I wished I were jogging. During the jogging, I wondered when it would be time to walk again. When we finished, I was sweatier and more tired than the week before. I needed a nap.

We repeated this combination two more times to complete week three.

Each day I grew stronger. I’d needed a nap after day one, but after day two, I thought about a nap, but didn’t take one. By day three, napping didn’t come to mind. The haranguing in my head continued, but I told the nasty voice, “Listen. You keep telling me I can’t, but I AM. Please shut up!” This silenced it for a while, then it returned with more lies. But now, I wasn’t believing them.

***

I didn’t know running was in our genes. My father, a tall, thin, long-legged German, looked like a marathoner. As the anchor of his high school mile-relay team, he had won the state championship, and set a record that stood for many years. Eventually, my sister gave me his medals.

My uncle on my mother’s side also ran, but he’s built with short legs and a long body. When we visit, he reminisces about his glory days as a runner. His favorite distance was the 10k (6.2 miles), which he said was, “long enough to get yourself warmed up, but not far enough to kill you.”

I was a normal-sized child, despite feeling fat. I only gained

considerable weight when, in my thirties, I went on antidepressants. I have my father’s long legs and arms, but a short body. If I had my uncle’s long torso as well, I would be six feet tall.

***

The trail shoes I’d worn during my first three weeks of training were heavy and hot. I’d need something lighter soon.

Two years before, in 2008, I’d tried to run in sandals. I’d just graduated from MFA school and had gained twenty pounds, eating over that stress combined with the deaths of my niece and mother. In the sandals, my ankle swelled to the size of a grapefruit. An urgent-care doctor said it was my weight. He echoed my self-deprecation. So, once again, I quit. But now, despite my previous swollen-ankle mishap and the fact that I still carried the weight, I thought I wanted “proper” running sandals.

I drove to the same running store I’d gone to years before. My friend then had said, “You need the right equipment.” But I’d been a starving law student and had left empty-handed. Today, I entered the store determined to buy the right equipment.

When I asked for running sandals, the young sales clerk screwed up her face. She showed me Vibram five fingers, essentially gloves for your feet. I screwed up my face. “It’s for minimalist runners,” she said.

I didn’t know what a minimalist runner was, so I asked her to suggest something else. I mentioned my previously swollen ankle, but not my weight. I looked nothing like the thin employees or other customers.

“Let me watch you walk without shoes,” she said. I walked and felt self-conscious as she studied my gait.

She also measured my foot in the Brannock device they’ve been measuring feet with since the dawn of time. “Your feet will swell when you run. Go at least a half size larger,” she said. Her tone of expertise impressed me, even though she was young enough to be my dead niece.

“Try them out in the parking lot,” she suggested. I hadn’t worn the sports bra, and, since I could barely tolerate being seen in my own neighborhood, I declined and just walked around the store.

The large, cushioned shoes felt like walking in marshmallow clown boots. “Beginning runners need more support,” she said. I’d gone in looking for sandals. These were the opposite. Having done no research, I didn’t know the running shoe trend was toward more flexible, lower-heeled shoes as an alternative to the highly cushioned and immobilizing shoes she recommended. I said I’d take them.

Form-fitting tops, stretch tights, and split shorts hung on racks around me. I hadn’t researched running clothes either, so I also didn’t know that “cotton kills,” and turned away from those and toward a wall of ankle socks in different fabrics, thicknesses, and colors. My tube socks had to go. I chose the same brand I’d used to try on the shoes. With pads under the toes and ball of the foot, and on the heel, plus a stretchy, colored material across the top, they added to the pillowy feel. I bought three pairs: aqua to match the shoes, pale pink, and black.

I’d just spent more money on running gear in one hour than I’d spent on any clothing in the last few years. When I was younger and thinner (and possibly hypomanic), I easily dropped hundreds of dollars on work clothes, but weight gain, lack of energy, and practically nonexistent self-worth had driven me out of the stores. Now, I peeked into the bag and smiled at the small bit of color on the socks. I was a serious jogger!

***

A few days later, after jogging, I had coffee with my friend Krista.

As I slid into a booth, she pointed to my workout pants and asked if I’d been exercising. While I was still depressed enough not to shower regularly, another measurement of my mental health, I hadn’t sweated enough to warrant the effort.

Krista was a few years older than me and exercised regularly. In the past, when she suggested exercise might improve my emotional well-being, I gave her the responses I used to ward off such recommendations. “I’m tired. It’s cold. I’m fat. It will ruin my knees. I don’t like exercise. I don’t have the energy.” I didn’t think of these as excuses. I thought myself incapable. There had been a day when I exercised, and that day had passed.

My attitude was changing.

“I’m jealous,” she said. She had run races and now walked her Jack Russell terrier and bicycled. Running, she said, hurt her knees.

Every story about how hard running was on the knees made me wonder if there wasn’t a better way to run. In the unlikely event that I ran longer distances, I might research it.

“You should do Race for the Cure,” Krista suggested.

“Um, no,” I said, nearly knocking over my coffee. “I’m not leaving the neighborhood.”

She added, “Races are like parties for people who exercise. Plus, you raise money for charity.”

“I’m not even sure I’ll stick with it,” I said, trying to derail her.

“I waddle,” I said. I hadn’t yet stumbled onto John Bingham’s “waddling penguin” society, but that’s how I thought I looked.

She did not understand how I’d struggled just to jog where the neighbors might look out their windows. I had friends who dressed in pink clothes and wigs to run or walk 3.1 miles to raise money for breast cancer research with twenty thousand others. I wasn’t one of them.

“I’m a private runner,” I said, remembering the pleasant intervals in the neighborhood with the dog. I’d begun to think of it as therapy.

Undeterred, Krista told me about her son’s training schedule when he’d run the Akron Marathon. He did three or four short runs during the week and a longer run on the weekend. Each week, the long run distance increased, until he was running about twenty miles. Before the race, he “tapered,” cutting back his mileage “to rest up.”

While it sounded grueling, his marathon training intrigued me. I was following my own training plan. With a plan, I don’t have to think. I just follow the schedule. This might be why I like meditation and writing practice so much. You set the timer and sit or write. No second-guessing. Hearing about her son’s training plan made my schedule more legitimate.

When I explained that I didn’t know how far I was walking and jogging, Krista also told me about a tracking website. Years ago, I used my car’s odometer to calculate how far I ran. Now, using Google Maps, the site tells how far you ran. You enter how long it took, and it calculates the pace. This seemed like more information than I needed, but I couldn’t wait to go home and try.