11 Things You May Not Know About Me, Running Edition

In honor (if that’s the right word) of that Facebook meme about “things you may not know about me,” I thought I’d have a bit of fun and mention 11 unusual facts about myself. My focus here is narrower. Of course it’s about running, but it’s specifically about things that others runners may commonly experience that I rarely (if ever) do.

In more than 18 years of running, I have never…

• Lost a toenail. I get blood blisters, but I’ve never lost a toenail. Haven’t even come close.
• Puked after a workout. I dry heaved once, but that was it. (My stomach’s pretty strong; aside from nights of bacchanalian excess, I haven’t been sick to my stomach in more than 20 years.)
• Recorded a DNF. I’ve thought about it, of course, but I have too much pride.
• Won. I placed third in a few high school races, and I’ve placed third in my age group in a handful of small suburban races, but nothing better than that.
• Entered a race on a whim. I need to plan -- even if it’s for the two-mile Fourth of July race in my hometown that’s less road race and more impromptu reunion.

And I have only once…

• Lost time due to an injury. I had runner’s knee in college and took about three weeks off. I wasn’t stretching enough. Now I stretch after every run, as well as on my off days when I know I need it, and as a result I stay mostly pain-free. (Point of order: I typically take about two weeks off after a marathon and did the same for my wedding and honeymoon.)
• Finished a run with bloody nipples. Suffice to say this is a lesson you don’t soon forget.
• Skipped a race I signed up for. It was a half marathon a few years ago, and I convinced myself I was in such bad shape that I’d bonk and embarrass myself. Frankly, skipping the race was more embarrassing. (Oddly, since my friend ran and picked up my packet for me, I have the race shirt. It’s quite comfortable.)
• Done an entire run shirtless. It was a 10-mile race on a 100-degree day. (Why not more often? A doffed shirt makes an excellent seat rag. And I am pasty white.)
• Run barefoot. For some reason, I did a cooldown after a particularly disappointing high school cross country race with my shoes in my hands. That was pretty stupid.My teammates, to their credit, let me suffer in silence.
• Run outdoors while wearing headphones. (I was reminded of this during a social media conversation.) I remember it well, actually: Just after buying myself an iPod, I ran a loop around Lake Quannapowitt, plus the mile or so to get there and come home to my old apartment, and listened to Monster. (I skipped "Tongue." My least favorite R.E.M. song.) Music made me run too damn fast. I still listen to headphones on the rare occasion I run on a treadmill, but I don't run with headphones any more.  

Here’s hoping that I haven’t jinxed myself and end up failing to finish my next race (which I happen to be winning despite signing up that very morning) by snapping my IT band so badly that I tear a toenail off and gross myself out so much that I throw up. 

What do you do, or avoid doing, or have only done once, that makes you a unique runner?

Why I Never Run With Headphones

Every year, my hometown hosts a 2-mile race on the Fourth of July. It’s a great way to kick off the day’s festivities, which also include a parade and a bunch of booths on the Town Common sponsored by local organizations and offering games, the work of local arts and lots and lots of food. 

The race itself is a bit of a zoo. The logistics are great, the spectators are great (the last mile and a half follows the parade path, where folks often set up their lawn chairs and blankets long before dawn) but the field is crowded, and every year there are more and more little kids sprinting like bats released from hell at the start, only to die about 400 meters into the race, that I legitimately fear some sort of trampling incident. 

I’ve run the John Carson Road Race more than any other -- several times as one of those annoying kids, every year of high school and a few years after that -- and definitely have plenty of fond memories. Chief among them is sprinting to the finish alongside a former assistant high school coach a few years ago. We gave each other plenty of crap over the years, both of us taking it as easily as we dished it out, and I was glad to see that he was still getting after it. 

I haven’t done the race in a few years. For starters, I don’t go home very often. In addition, I seem to get slower every year, while the field remains just as fast, with the latest crop of sub-11-minute high schoolers darting out after the gun, never looking back and leaving old men like me in the dust. (Note: I know many of you reading this are probably older than I am. You know what I mean.) 

That said, this race means a lot to me. It’s the reason I never run with headphones.  

John Carson, in this case, wasn’t a late-night TV host. He was a promising high school runner in the 1980s. According to lore, my town was full of such runners back then, regularly winning conference and state championships. My teams tried to replicate that success, with mixed results. (No thanks to me. I was seventh man on the cross country team on a good day.) 

One day, John went running along a set of train tracks while wearing a Walkman. He didn’t hear a train coming. The first paramedic on the scene was his coach -- and, later, my coach. (Not the one I bumped into a few years ago.) He was the last one to see John alive. 

I’m rarely tempted to run with music. I usually use the time to think -- sometimes about my run, but mostly about other stuff. Whenever I’m tempted, I think about John Carson. Sure, I’m a safe runner -- I stick to sidewalks and crosswalks whenever I can, I wear reflective gear at night and my shoes are obnoxiously bright -- but I’m also easily distracted and refuse to risk something awful just so I can listen to some tunes.  

Many in my hometown call it the Fourth of July race. They’re not necessarily wrong. But to me, it’ll always be the John Carson Road Race. And I will never forget why.

Seventeen Years and Counting

Most runners can point to a seminal moment when they stopped being a runner and started being a runner. It can take months or even years for this transformation to occur, but once it does, there's no turning back.

In my case, it didn't take long.

I started running in the summer of 1995. It was largely on a whim; I saw the list of fall sports tryout days and times in the local newspaper and figured, "Why not?"

For two weeks I plodded around town in basketball shoes. I struggled to finish any workout without walking. Eventually I invested in running shoes (but not, as a means of maintaining my pride, in little nylon running shorts).

The shoes gave me shin splits, and I was ready to say the hell with it. I told my coach as much. Given that I was the 14th man on the squad (out of 14), I wouldn't have been much of a loss.

I don't remember exactly what my coach said, so I've romanticized it thusly: "You shouldn't give up on yourself, because I haven't given up on you." (Sounds poignant, no?) So I stuck around.

In my first race, I finished our 5K course in 29:45 and was dead last. I was last, again, in the second meet, but I did shave a minute off my time. The third meet was on the road, and the course was shorter, so even though I was in the mid-20s, I didn't grasp what it meant.

It wasn't until the next home meet -- when I broke 23 minutes -- that I officially became a runner. There was no turning back, of course. I signed up for indoor track, even though it meant running around the God-forsaken fishbowl that is the Lowell High gym 23 1/2 times for the two mile, not to mention training outside throughout the winter. I did spring track, too, even if it meant regularly  joining no less than a dozen other kids in a ridiculously crowded JV mile heat. I ran through the summer, too -- though that wasn't much of a sacrifice, since I was an incoming high school sophomore with nothing better to do.

Seventeen years after my runner moment, I'm still at it. I don't run as often (stupid adulthood), and I'm not as fast (stupid aging process), but I'm enjoying myself just as much (the last week notwithstanding). Plus, I'm discovering that, by running smarter, I may actually be running faster after all.