I’m not a runner. I mean, I am really not a runner. But lately I have come to be bothered by the idea that running is something I can’t do. After Linc was born, I set out on a mission to get in shape because, frankly, I took the indulgence of pregnancy WAY too far and had more than a few pounds to lose once he arrived and I realized I was dealing with more than “a little baby weight.” I can’t say that it has always been easy, but I was determined to undo the damage I had done with all those late night desserts I just had to have because I was craving them. It took over two years, but I eventually got rid of all of that pregnancy weight plus a few pounds I was carrying when I got pregnant. I revamped my diet and learned to exercise harder than I ever thought possible.
So, after all that work, after all that change and growth and progress, the idea that I still couldn’t run more than half a mile without my lungs threatening to explode started to get under my skin. Being unable to run a mile without looking like I was suffering a massive coronary back in elementary school P.E. was the direct cause of a lifelong hatred of exercise. I was the only one who couldn’t run without stopping, who got so red-faced I looked sunburned for the rest of the day, who gasped and choked and wheezed after one lap around the field. It must mean, I decided, that I was not cut out for exercise.
Now that I am in my thirties and have proven those old insecurities wrong on many fronts, it irks me that I still can’t run without reverting to that old huffing, red-faced little girl feeling all too literally like a fish out of water. So, in keeping with my mile-wide stubborn streak, I have decided to start training slowly and surely with the intent to run a 10K in the spring. The idea of running over 6 miles (without slowing to a walk or stopping to pass out) seems ludicrous to me at this point, but in case you haven’t picked up on it yet, I am ridiculously stubborn.
Having said all that, cut to an early morning scene in August. It’s 6:00am and already nearly 90 degrees, though the sun has not even begun to peek over the horizon. I am lugging my tired old body to campus to run at Clark field before work, stretching reluctantly in a pool of artificial light on the edge of the track, setting my iPod for inspiration mode (read: volume at 11), and pushing myself out on the springy red track that is supposed to make this torture less devastating to my joints. I am rounding the first corner, a quarter of a quarter mile into a two mile attempt at running. I am rubbing my eyes because it is so early that a rock on the side of the track seems to have moved. I am tilting my head because now the rock is rotating and unfurling a tail and turning to flash black-gold nocturnal eyes at me as several smaller rocks scatter out from the larger rock with adolescent bursts of speed.
The flash of light off of dark irises is unnerving, as is the black mask drawn around the eye sockets that appears far less cartoonish and playfully bandit-like in the pre-dawn darkness. In my grogginess, I had not even noticed that I was the first one to the track that morning and had apparently arrived before a family of raccoons had finished their last minute scavenging. The mother raccoon and I surprised each other, crossing paths at the changeover from night shift to day. Her babies ran nearby, one approaching me with its nose to the ground, clueless to my enormous, clumsy feet and intrinsic human evil nature. The mother rocked back suddenly and raised herself to full height and then charged.
Charged at me. Me!
I am proud to say that I am a faster runner than I realized until that moment. Not quite as proud to admit that once I reached the other side of the track and was sure the raccoon had turned back to tend its babies, I suddenly felt the need to pull into a well lit area and stretch for several more minutes until the track started to fill up and the raccoons had disappeared off into the distant brush.
Once I was sure I was safe, I hit the track again, but I was still jumpy every time I rounded that corner. The other runners around me were clueless, comfortable, barely glancing away from the track, and certainly not concerned with the dark edges of the track where leaves rustled with more force than the still summer morning air could generate. But I was jumpy, having been through a scare, having experienced an eye-opening that none of them understood. That realization, combined with the image stuck in my mind of the angry mama’s eyes, got me thinking about my own role as mother specific to Linc.
I guess you could say I’m jumpy about things because of him, too. He surprised us right at the start with a whole bunch of potential medical tragedies and a host of worries we simply did not have in the wake of our typical son’s birth. So, it’s only natural that in my first few times around the track, I was always whipping my head around, constantly wondering if every little sound was the other shoe dropping.
Would this cough be the one that would turn into a crippling infection? Was that woman staring at Linc because he looked different? Things that would go unnoticed by another person running along beside me, another person who hadn’t been jolted awake like I had, seemed like flashing neon signs to me. Last night, Linc had a bout of croup and woke, gasping with high pitched, rattling breaths. I took him into the bathroom, turned on the hot water and tried not to panic as the steam filled up the room and obscured the mirror. Would this just be one long night or would it turn into something worse? Every painful intake of breath grated on me like fingernails on chalkboard and made my chest constrict in sympathy and worry.
But, the other aspect of that raccoon vs. me encounter that stuck with me was the unexpected aggression of the mama raccoon. I’ve seen a few raccoons in my life, but I had never seen one pounce. It just goes to show you what a mother can be driven to do in protection of her babies. I feel that so often with Lincoln, that I would throw myself in front of a train (or launch myself at a resistant school board) for him. Heaven help the person who tries to discriminate against him, or taunt him, or keep him from something that he deserves to participate in. They will see the flash of this mama bear’s eyes so quick, they better hope they can run as fast as I did from the angry raccoon that day.
One of the reasons I’m out there running in the first place is that I see how hard Lincoln has to work to accomplish things that just come naturally to the rest of us. If he can put in that much work to roll over or walk or eat, then how can I simply say, “I’m not a runner” and go sit my big butt down on the couch? How can I give any less than he does? I can’t, of course, so I get out there and push against the track, push against my fears and insecurities, push against lethargy even when I know succumbing would be so easy. I fight so much harder since Linc came into my life, both for him and in honor of him. When I remember that, I just have to stop and thank the Lord that he gave me such an amazing gift. What a kid!
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