Why I run.

It all started with Alex.  One look at him and you know he’s a natural-born runner – tall, long-legged, and skinny no matter how many Pizza Hut chicken wings he orders on Wednesday night.  I was never predisposed to it – short, hour-glass shaped and big in all the wrong places.  Playing for my high school soccer team, I looked like a pig being poked with an electrified stick.  After learning that he had done track throughout high school and had regularly run from Alexandria to the monuments in DC after moving to the area, I desperately wanted to be able to keep up with him.  Half a desire to impress, half a desire to be able to share an activity which was clearly something he enjoyed, I started to run in January 2010, about a year ago. 

At first, I wanted to be able to go out for a jog on a Saturday morning and simply be able to keep up.  My very first goal was to run for 15 minutes uninterrupted on a treadmill.  I met the first goal relatively easily, but I didn’t find myself enjoying the experience.  I counted down every minute and always struggled to finish, not because I was out of shape, but because I was so damn bored by the end.  As spring sprung, I got up the courage to start jogging from my apartment to the Capitol building and back – about two miles.  When I took this job in Rwanda, it became clear that I wasn’t going to be able to afford to join a gym (twice as expensive in Kigali as back in DC) and that hitting the road was likely to be my only free source of exercise.  It was about this time that I heard of the Kigali Marathon.

During our Global Health Corps training at Stanford last summer, we all set professional and personal goals for the upcoming year.  One girl who was headed to Rwanda’s southern neighbor, Burundi, set running the Kigali Marathon as her personal goal.  My competitive antennae immediately jumped up.  I wanted to run the Kigali Marathon!  A seemingly impossible task!  Twenty six miles in the beating sun!  Constant up and down hills at high altitude!  It sounded perfect to my overachieving ears.

When I arrived in Kigali, I knew it was time to get to work, and I started to run in earnest.  But not for far, and not for long.  The altitude made my lungs feel like crumpled paper balls after fourth period on a Friday.  The landscape was a continuous cycle of up and down, up and down, and up, and up, and up.  In the beginning, every run felt like I had willingly signed up for a brutal ass kicking.

However, the more I ran, the more I found that my body could handle whatever I threw at it.  Every run felt like a victory, which – newly separated by six thousand miles from the people I love – was sorely needed.  In the past five months, running has become a metaphor for my life in Rwanda.  Yes, I could reach the top of the next hill and yes, I could survive a year apart from my boyfriend.  I learned to say to myself “When you’re feeling tired, keep your head down and move more slowly, but don’t ever stop.  Don’t you dare stop.”

I started to run three and four miles, even six on the weekend.  At the end of each run, I was amazed to find that I didn’t feel like I wanted to die, but rather that I felt more alive than any other time I could remember.  I would promise myself a walk break at the top of the next hill and then find that I didn’t need one once I reached it.  I’ve learned that setting yourself on fire feels better at the end than never getting burned.  Yes, I could run for over an hour without stopping, and yes, I would get through the next months alone.  Yes, I could keep going even when my legs did not want to move another step and when I felt lonelier than hell.

I plan to run the Kigali International Peace Marathon on May 22^nd.  I still have an extremely long way to go in training, staying healthy, and preparing mentally for the challenge.  A few people have suggested I’m a little nuts for attempting it, but I’ve found that the small running victories both fuel and give structure to the rest of my life.  I’ve a learned a whole lot so far, but perhaps the most profound thing I’ve discovered is that when your chest starts to close and you feel like quitting, it’s not a time to rest, but exactly the right time to push on.