Being A (Reluctant) Sprinter in Marathon Times

Lately I’ve been feeling a little bit like a sprinter in a marathon world. I bet I’m not the only one.  Some of us know the long haul—and still we might prefer the sprint. We find it frustrating when things that seem so easy to fix turn out to have much more complicated structures beneath the surface.

I only participated in one longer running event in my life. (I know I can see some of the runners among us, rolling their eyes.) It was a 5K, which I ran in Charlottesville, Virginia, during July, which meant we trained in what we then thought of then as the hot part of the year. As we did the training runs, I thought to myself, “I am not the least bit enthusiastic about running –and I know that I am in no way a long distance runner.”

However, the friend  who had enticed me to run had asked me to do so because she needed something she could do with her severely disabled child. There we were running in the ever-climbing temperatures and humidity— and she was pushing a three wheeled wheelchair in front of her. It seemed like the thing I could do to run alongside, even if it looked more like limping alongside

Last night I sat with a group of over 50 women talking about how they have found running groups with diverse bodies and how they love the feeling of running.

That is not me. Though in other areas of my life–for example as an advocate–I know a few things about the long haul.

I have thought about training and running another 5K, yey, for a variety of reasons, I never have. What I do take from that experience, though is that even a sprinter, like me-even a devout non-runner—can learn that with the right motivation, marathons are possible.

I find that comforting in this 2025. Let’s keep up the pace.