Middle Half Thoughts

As the bodies passed toward the starting line of the Murfreesboro Middle Half, all sculpted or born for this course, I forced myself to look at my own in hope of comprehending why I run.

Spit duct tape and a band around my knee hold this stocky form together. Everything must align, or everything falls apart. It always finishes in a litany of aches and cramps, with knees and joints refusing to forgive a run so far.

Even as the miles stacked up, I questioned it repeatedly. A girl whose I estimated at 6 feet four inches walked faster than I ran on the last two miles. No matter how much I churned those legs, I couldn't catch her.

Even as I smelled the finish line, I had no answer for passing someone who was all legs.

I finished eight minutes faster than my Country Music Half Marathon time, 33 minutes better than the ill-fated Music City Half Marathon run a year ago. A day later, the soreness of those first few hours is barely visible.

I started running out of frustration with nearly getting run over while cycling on Columbus streets. but that purpose has evolved. I had no interest in running half-marathons, much less. I ran that first 5K with unbelievable trepidation. I ran the second a week later, and now fall has turned into an eight or nine week run of races. Since August, I have run three 5Ks, two 10Ks and a 15K. There's good fortune in races divisible by five.

Running wards off depression - psychiatrists might disagree, but as someone who has long battled the disease, I cannot argue with that sensation that overtakes the whole body as the brutality ends and the endorphins began to flow unencumbered. I might be bout to face the worse cramps ever to freeze my legs, but man, the moments before and after are pure bliss.

Plus, as runners know, the beating your body takes creates a beautiful exhaustion surpassed only by sex. it's true, non-runners. But as a person who always struggled with accomplishment as well, I can say that weekend always feels better after finishing off a few miles on Saturday morning.

The competition against myself began on St. Patrick's Day 2007, when I ran back-to-back 5Ks in Dublin. From there, the slippery slope grew unavoidable.

Two weeks later came the first 10K. Then a four-miler and a 5K in the same weekend. I originally hoped to build up to the Columbus Marathon, but tweaking my knee ended that training plan. Then my running buddy Ric handed me a $10 off coupon for the Country Music Half Marathon - with six months to prepare, I couldn't turn it down. I never felt fast, but I never stopped looking at the finish line.

I finished the 15K from two weeks ago in 92 minutes, second-slowest in the 30-34 age group. But finish without only a minor stop, ran efficiently and cut my time by six minutes over the previous year's 15K. Score: One for me, everyone else is irrelevant.

How fast the Kenyan cadre finished the Middle Half was irrelevant. They come to race, I just run. I kept my head down, competed against only myself and finished.

I left without a plaque, but they draped a medal over my head like that of every other finisher.

And when the Country Music Half arrives in April 2009, I'll run among 30,000 people, and still only have myself to compete with.