Running for me was a bit of an accident.
Back in the day, the late 90’s to be exact, I used to run track and cross country in high school. In high school I did the long distance races, 1600 and 3200 meters. I liked running track and cross country but I was no elite athlete by any means. I mainly did these sports to become a well-rounded student that everyone says you need to be in order to give you the competitive edge for your college applications. It is kind of interesting that now it seems that colleges are interested only in the academic aspects of a high schooler’s application. But, that is another story for another day. Matter of fact, once I received early admissions for one of my top choice school in October of my Senior year, I pretty much did not participate in any extracurricular activities for the rest of the year.
Pretty much from Senior year of high school to my first year of my postdoctoral fellowship (a good 12-year span), I did not run at all. Actually . . . I lie. I think that I may have ran five miles once in graduate school. Too be frank, I used to get quite annoyed hearing about friends rambling about training for half- and full- marathons. Also, the NYC Marathon used to be a big thorn in my side, because of all of the street closures.
So what caused the change in my feelings towards running?
In 2010/2011, I used to ride my bike to work everyday. It was a short commute (about 4 miles from Roosevelt Island to the Upper East Side) but I had to cross two bridges, so it was a decent 25-30 minute workout. However, my road bike has very thin tires, so I would get flat tires constantly, which are a pain to change. One day in February 2011, I get up, put on my cold weather (it gets cold in NYC in February) gear to ride my bike, and I see that I my bicycle had flat tire. Since I was ready to go, I rolled my eyes and grabbed my allen wrench to start changing the flat. Then, I thought to myself “Screw this, you can just run to work”. I may have used other choice words than “screw”.
After that day, I became a runner . . . again. I started to run to work almost every other day, unless the weather was below 32F. I am a scientist in Academia, so I really did not have to dress too nicely . . . jeans and a T-shirt is appropriate dress code in my line of work. My coworker, a runner, noticed that I was running to work and suggested that I participate in some of the races that the New York Road Runners (NYRR) sponsored. Then, I was really hooked. My 5K races became 10K races and my 10K races became half-marathons. Then, I was a like if I can do a half-marathon, why not train for NYC’s marathon. It is interesting that while training for the NYC marathon, I told myself that I would never to do another marathon again. However, when I finished the marathon I made a bucket list of running marathons in other states and other countries.
It is kind of cool for someone who was not that interested in running became more involved in the running community all because of a flat bicycle tire. The interesting thing is that I think that I am a better runner as a 36 year old man than when I was a 17-year old “kid”.