Some people are built to run--- all skinny sinew, wires, and oxygen--- but I am not. For most of my life, I relished the pleasure of churning up mountain trails, chugging like a logging train, and my knees could take the inevitable downward thumping as well, but running---- succinctly stated--- I hate it. Yet, I ran for over 35 years after a very long, steep descent from the Sierra Laguna Mountains in Baja California in 1978 resulted in a crippling case of tendonitis. I didn't know what it was at the time, only that the simplest walk was excruciatingly painful. The podiatrist later declared me to be defective by having a pronated right foot, putting added strain on my knee etc etc blah blah marmalade marmalade marmalade….
So, I bought some shoe inserts and took up running for the primary purpose of dealing with this tendonitis. From our old house, I could do a three to four mile run with half of the distance on trails, and I liked the unevenness, dodging variability of it, but when we moved to our current neighborhood, the run was entirely on paved streets in the neighborhood, in other words, boring. The combination of this with the sweaty, boiling Florida summer did not increase my love of running, nor did the hour it took to stop sweating afterwards.
However, running in the desert of Borrego Springs was a different matter, and certainly not boring. I simply ran across the desert alluvial flats, beginning at our back porch, and shoes crunching on the gravelly sand, I nimbly dodged among the bushes of grey saltbush dense with seed heads and every time I passed a creosote bush with its yellow flowers and cottony fruit balls I got a whiff of its disinfectant smell. I could run in any direction, zigging and zagging, as I could see farther than forever and was unconstrained by roads or trails. Often my goal was a tiny grove of palms planted at what someone must have hoped would someday be their homesite.
It took about 15 minutes to run there, and if I ran a little too fast, I then circled and zigzagged among the ocotillos, to bring the time up to 15 minutes, before starting back for a total of 30 minutes and 3.5 miles. As I tired on the return run, I needed more to distract me. I sniffed as I passed through the scent cloud of each creosote bush I passed, counted the desert lilies with their wavy leaves and lovely flower spikes, scared up jack rabbits (and waved them goodbye) and mentally censused the size and distribution of the nests of the black harvester ants with their surrounding drifts of spent seeds. Finally, I was back home, panting and sweating, my running duty done.
So, running in Borrego beat running in Tallahassee all hollow, but it was still running, and I never became a runner even after 35 years, and it was always a chore, and I always hated it.
An Update. Strangely, it was only after I quit the boring “distance” running that I discovered that I liked dashes--- brief, all-out spurts at (my) maximum speed. In contrast to painfully tolerating the long plod of a distance run, struggling to keep my mind on something else… anything else… the dash was over almost as soon as it began. I was certainly far from champion quality, but how many 80-year-olds can dash at all? It thus became my 80th birthday wish to run 100 meters in less than 20 seconds. Sure, the world record for 80-year-olds is about 15 seconds, so my goal was pretty lame by comparison, but still…. Anyway, I did it in 19.40 seconds, which come to think of it is the year I was born multiplied by 100. Now, if I can maintain this time until I am 95, I will be the world champ. How hard could it be?
I am grateful to Kim Jones for helping me achieve my dashing goal. With her help, I think I maintained proper form, as well as top speed (for me).
Maybe you're a jackrabbit runner, Walter? Also, you had me at creosote bush! my Hopi friend, also named Walter (not by his parents' choice, but his "Christian name" given at Indian School), was a member of the Greasewood clan, which I never realized was creosote bush until many years after he'd passed. He whittled for me my own greasewood digging stick, which, on the days I'm homesick for the desert, I hold to my nose.
I love getting to see through your eyes in these essays.
As a long time runner, only a comparatively ittle younger than you, I really appreciate this essay.
I was a compulsive runner..I just had to get my miles in every day. When I was at a conference in Orlando, I would rise early in the morning to get my five miles in. I can't believe how unpleasant it was to run in that muggy heat. I admire you for even trying!
I was a distance runner who delighted in the marathons and ultramarsthons, my usual pace was about a 9 minute mile. As the guy said, if they threw me out of a plane, I'd fall at a 9 minute mile! My motto was Start Slow and Then Taper Off! I developed many injuries that dropped me below the distance stuff, but I could still do halfs and 5ks and fartleks although my dash speed was more like an 8 minute mile! Previously a last place finisher, I now started finishing in the top three simply because I had outlived the competition!
Covid ended all running as I was left with breathlessness that lasted almost three years and severe arthritis in my left foot kinda made running too painful past a few blocks!
Now I have a closet with two dozen running shoes, several boxes of camelbaks and hydration systems, and handheld water bottles. I still have my posters if Scott Jurek and Ann Trason and more good memories than you can shake a trekking pole at.
All if which your writing brought back. Thank you, Walter.