The Treadmill

by djr

I don’t often wonder when I lace up my running shoes if I’m ever coming back.  My trails are big loops or maybe an out-and-back, but they always end where they began.  Today, that thought races through my head like a streaker and fades off into my dreams.  I ignore it.  I have five miles ahead of me, but it’s really so much longer.  The heavy air wraps itself around me like a warm, wet blanket.  Last night’s rain has washed down the streets like an 80’s rom-com; everything is wet and sparkly.  But the sun glows warm on the horizon beckoning me to be a part of something beautiful.  Shoes, shorts, tank-top, jog-bra, and my faithful GPS watch, Pinkie.  She’s pink.  She’s kept me company for thousands of miles over the years, almost enough to circle the globe.  Except for my parents and my black lab, nobody has been as faithful to me for that long.  I start Pinkie and head down the sleepy street on my morning run.

I turn into the forest and the cool darkness washes over me.  Five miles to go.  With five to go you’re still settling into a rhythm.  Finding your pace.  Your breathing.  Your aches and pains and tightness all hollering at you.  But deep down you know.  You know all that won’t last.  You’ll run them off.  They’ll be gone when you finish like bad memories of a town you left behind.  Or those you counted as friends but were simply manipulators—puppeteers looking for entertainment before you cut those strings and freed yourself.  Less than five to go. 

Five.  It’s an odd number, but an easy one.  Five fingers.  Five toes.  I’ve lived in five different decades, though only one year in the first and last.  Thirty-two years seems like a lifetime from here.  Have I been running toward something?  Something beautiful?  Something sparkling?  Something better?  Or am I just running away…and never got anywhere?  Childhood is so much like that first mile.  Aches, pains, finding your pace.  You don’t know it then, but you’ll run off the awkwardness, the angst, the teen years.  You’ll get there.  At least you’re damn well going to try.

Five years of my marriage.  The adjustments of the first year?  You run those off too.  Just knocking down the miles as you move down the road to your destination.  “Where are we going?” I asked him.  He didn’t know either.  So, we just kept going.  Being married every day becomes a habit after a while—you do it without thinking.  When I ran my first marathon my biggest concern was not breathing or strength or hitting the mythical Wall.  It was boredom.  Fighting boredom when all you’re doing is moving forward may be the biggest challenge of all.  Left right left right breathe in breathe out left right left right breathe in breathe out…for hours.  Just keep moving.  Don’t stop.  The joy long gone.  Hips, knees, and ankles all getting mushy.  Left right left right.  Habit, the only thing keeping you moving.  Habit and desire.  Then life places a hand firmly on your sternum and pushes back on you.  Not a lot, just a little.  Mile after mile it wears you down.  But you still run on.  You check your time and your miles and wonder, is it all worth it?  “Where am I going?” I asked him.  He didn’t know.  Five years later, I still don’t think he does.  Do I?

The fallen tree next to the path looks up sadly at me, it’s roots still clinging to clumps of earth that used to feed it and support it.  It makes me sad to the point of tears.  This beautiful thing that took years to become, simply lost its footing and fell over.  It lies there slowly dying.  Crying.  Or maybe just wet with last night’s rain.

Gotta keep going.  What other fives?  Five arguments a week.  Money.  Kids.  Cooperation.  Communication.  Just another habit.  Grind them out.  The arguments becoming like running the same roads each day.  “I’ve been here before.”  But I keep coming back.  Keep running.  I need to. 

“You don’t listen to me,” I tell him.

“You never tell me anything.”  Like he’d do anything about it anyway.  “You just get quiet.  What am I supposed to do with silence?  Read your mind.”

Inside the woods, the water still drops off the leaves as if it’s still raining.  As if the rain doesn’t know it’s over. 

Four miles to go.

Four…four…four?  Four seasons of running.  Through biting winters with layers and jackets and gloves and frozen cheeks.  The howling north wind blowing all but the rare hard-core runners off the roads like lingering fall leaves.  People drive by me and probably think I’m an idiot.  He does too.  “What the hell are you doing going out on the roads on a day like today?  Nobody else is outside today.”  Maybe that’s why I do it.  Maybe that’s why!  Maybe it makes me feel special.  Maybe it’s the only thing that does.  Though, I know that’s not true…maybe I only suspect it.

Then there are those glorious spring and fall mornings when you feel like you are connected to the day.  A part of something beautiful.  Something extraordinary.  You still smell the air on you when you get home—the crunchy leaves, the fragrant blossoms.  Like the day wants to claim you as its own and bring you back to it.  I know you.  I know your scent--you’re one of my children.  Come back.  I want to hold you a little longer.  You never want that feeling to end.  But it does.   It hops silently away like that little teacup-sized bunny next to the path.  I don’t want her to move.  I don’t wish to disturb her morning munching.  But survival is a powerful thing, and she vanishes among the greenery despite my silent pleas to stay.  To stay and enjoy this moment with me.

Then there are weighty summer days like this one.  You carry the heat and the air on your back and venture out.  It is so hard to take that first step on a brutal summer morning like that.  It’s just that sometimes it’s easier than staying in the dark, cold house. 

Four marathons and four half-marathons.  So far.  In my youth I had no interest in marathons.  I was a 5K girl.  Fast.  The 5k is so short you’re almost the sprinter of the distance crowd.  But now I don’t feel fast.  I’m in it for the longer run.  I’m going all the way, just not as fast.  Carrying more than just extra weight.  Carrying The Load.   I’m a jockey.  Too light for my horse.  In horseracing if a jockey is too light for his horse, they make him carry weights.  Can you imagine?  Required to carry handicapping weights just to make things fair.  Carrying the heat and humidity with me through the woods is not fair!  Who am I kidding?  Everyone else carries it too. 

But I carry more than that.  Family, career, marriage, bills, adulthood.  Being a woman is just not like being a man.  Less than half the entire population of the planet has given birth.  Less than one percent has completed a marathon.  I wonder how many have done both.  And alone.  He was golfing when my water broke.  Even stayed to finish the round.  Didn’t get my calls or texts.   Yeah, right.  “Weak cell signal…but…twins!  Wow.”

Yeah.  Wow.

Four career changes.  That’s a lot in ten years of working.  Job, promotion, lane change, career change.  For all the consistency of long-distance running, in my professional life I’m a sprinter.  Run; done; next!  Need a new challenge.  Can’t maintain interest.  Get bored with jobs quickly.  Master it and ready to move on.

Maybe it’s not him.  It’s not us.  It’s just me. 

“What is your problem?” he asks, with less concern and more annoyance.  After all we’ve been through, it’s unbelievable he doesn’t know me well enough.  I know all of his moods and can connect the dots to why he feels them.  I don’t think he can do that for me.  Even for himself.  Running may be an introspective sport, but it leaves you extrospective.  Empathetic.  Maybe because you are out here alone.  Maybe because you must read everyone you pass—Is he a threat?  Is she feeling ok?  Is that child lost?  Oh, no.  A sock right here on the path.  A toddler’s sock.  It’s twin maybe still on a little foot, or maybe tumbling in a distant clothes-dryer.  Alone.  It will never be whole again.  Like this one at my feet, it will become something discarded and unworthy.  I leave it on the path and secretly pray for it.  Yes, I pray for a sock.  A tiny, helpless sock.  Almost as much as I pray for him to understand me.  Almost. 

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