Why run?

When I tell people that I run marathons, a lot of the time they don’t understand why. It doesn’t make a lot of sense to people and quite honestly, sometimes when I think about it, it doesn’t make a lot of sense to me either. I want to do a lot of things in my life, I want to travel and save the world and be a hero. I want to help people and improve their lives. Training for a marathon means that I spend a lot of my time…running. Running around in DC with headphones in, completely oblivious to the rest of the world, in anti-social, hard-core runner mode, trying to escape the thoughts that mess with my head. This is not very conducive to saving the world, no matter how you spin it.

It’s been 9 days since I lost my grandpa. He was 91 and finally, on May 29, was ready to go home to Heaven. It’s been hard to try to put into words how I feel. He was, to me, more than anything, just a grandpa, a man who spoiled me and loved me. But after he died, I suddenly realized how much more he was. I always knew his history, but seeing it in writing in an obituary, made me realize how overwhelming his presence in the world was. My grandpa was, in the words of my friend GutsyGeise, a big deal.

Realizing that I have that big deal stuff in my blood sometimes makes me feel pressure to be as great of a person as he was. It’s not bad, this pressure, but it kind of makes me wonder why I’m not out there, doing more and accomplishing great things. Sometimes, much to my dismay, running seems like a colossal waste of time.

And then what happens is that I skip running to do great things and end up watching tv or taking bubble baths, which is all very nice at the time, but really, an even bigger waste of time. Running might be a silly side hobby but it keeps me focused in my life. I can’t tell you how annoyingly often I find myself in a situation at work, personally, and suddenly compare it to a long-distance run. Running has taught me self-discipline, focus, and humiliation. I sometimes forget the lessons that I learn on the road.

I think my grandpa would be proud that I ran 20 miles this weekend. I think that he’d be proud of me for doing a marathon in under 4 hours and I think he’ll be proud of me when I qualify for Boston. As stupid as it might seem to an outsider, I really do think that I’m changing the world when I go out and run, because I’m changing my own world and isn’t that where all change starts?