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The other day, I was walking the last block to my house after a run and a woman engaged me in one of those “I used to run, but now my body is broken” conversations. I’m a sucker for that kind of nostalgia, because despite being a white person in America with no real financial worries, I’m constantly needing to remember that I’m lucky. Last week, a particularly rough time for me, I rented Murderball, the movie about quadriplegic rugby players. I watched it in three installments so I could have a daily reminder, the gift of my able body, to give me perspective on my privileged woes.

The woman on the street told me she had run in a handful of marathons. She gave a specific number, but once the number is one, it might as well be four or five or whatever. Marathon runners kill me, and not so much in that impressive way. We are not made for twenty-six miles; it’s so much unnecessary stress on the body. And I tend to worry about the mental condition of someone who wants to run twenty-six miles. She told me that she used to run up the 17th street hill that we were standing on the lower part of. That impressed me. I don’t bike up that hill. There is a warning sign: 17% grade. “I’m not sure passing cars could tell I was actually running,” she said. “But if I could just make it up that hill, I knew I was okay.”

I have been working out a decent amount in the past few months and have come to count on sweating as a catharsis integral to maintaining a semblance of mental health. But I don’t really set goals or anything. I’ll occasionally leave spin class five minutes early just to spite the workout. Until the other day, I hadn’t bothered to figure out how far I usually run and now I forget, but I think it’s 3.5 – 5 miles, depending. I usually run for about 30 to 45 minutes, but I don’t wear a watch. (I’m scared of finding out that I run a ten-minute mile.) I have no interest in running marathons or a 10k. I’ve always run just to feel good and that’s it.

Today, I needed to feel good. I awoke to PG&E jackhammering outside my window at 7:45 am. If I had planned on being in a decent mood, this would have been a severe blow, but since I was already feeling crappy, the construction workers didn’t bother me. On my way to the cafe, the back door of a van of slid open revealing a bunch of queer kids who appeared no older than twenty. The ringleader called for my attention. She announced that the gay boy thought I was hot, but then the lesbians claimed me as one of their own. “We just want you to know we all think you’re hot,” she said, while her entourage giggled in the background and one of them shouted to the driver, “Go, go.” When that ego boost lasted a whole four seconds, the length of time it took for my smile to fade, I knew I was in trouble. My writing session was awful, if one can call staring at the computer screen writing. By 11 am, I didn’t think I would make it through the day without my mind combusting.

Running doesn’t always put me in a good mood. Sometimes, it is as hard as writing. Sometimes, like today, I know I just have to do it. When I left my house this morning, the sun was just starting to peek out. I ran the out portion of my longer route: down the hill, up and over Divisidero, along the panhandle, and into Golden Gate park to the turn-off for the art museum.

I would never tackle the 17% 17th St hill from my front door without a warm-up. But every since I met that former marathoner, I’d been contemplating hitting 17th St from the backside. It’s still the same height but the grade isn’t as steep, and I’m so desperately in need of a change of running route, or even an alteration, that I consider it a potential reason to move. So after I ran out of Golden Gate park, rather than continuing home, I headed up towards the backside of 17th St.

I barely noticed the uphill. I was in the zone, that adrenaline fueled fantasy where I believe I can run forever. At the top of 17th St, I could see the burnt brown mounds of Twin Peaks, the towers poking through a thin sheet of San Francisco summer fog. I was afraid of the post-euphoric slide, afraid that if I stopped running, I might die. A voice inside my head said, “If you just get to the top, you’ll be okay.”

I plugged along. Passing cars probably didn’t know I was running. By now my hair was wet, my face was dripping, and I felt like a shaggy dog. The noon sun was out in full force, pinking my cheeks as I headed up, up and up to greet it. I knew from biking that on the final climb to the top, the curvaceous switchbacks have a gentle grade. It didn’t take very long for me to reach the tourists lining the walled viewing area where I scooped my arm into the air in the subtlest of victory gestures. In almost nine years in San Francisco, I’d never run to the top of Twin Peaks.

It didn’t surprise me that I made it. It didn’t surprise me that the whole time I believed I would make it. It certainly didn’t surprise me when the tears that had threatened at the start of my run, the ones that were preparing themselves all morning, came spilling out; I know I’m okay.

This entry was posted on Saturday, August 23rd, 2008 at 9:43 pm and is filed under sports, story. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.