Run, Forest, Run

It’s early. Still dark. No sane person should be up right now, and yet here I am. I am in the parking lot of the Hoover Met sports and fitness complex, which is currently filling up with cars.

Runners are outside their vehicles making wardrobe preparations for the big race. Pinning numbers to shirts. Doing aggressive calisthenics. A sound system is blasting “Everybody Wants to Rule the World.”

There must be a dress code inasmuch as many runners are wearing knee socks. Both men and women alike. I don’t know how schoolgirl-style knee socks became part of running, but apparently they are an integral part of the sport because I am the only one not wearing any.

There are impossibly fit bodies strutting around at the start line. People who, you can just tell, have never once in their lives said the words, “We’d like an order of queso, please.”

These are impressive specimens who are not Marines but civilians with bulging muscles, sleeve tattoos, and Lululemon activewear. Sort of like Soccer Mom Goes Terminator.

And then you have guys like me. I am not exactly the image of athleticism. I am more of an IPA guy. I am the kind of guy who, when forced to choose between white or wheat, chooses extra ranch.

But never mind, because the thing I love about races is that they are all-inclusive.

You can attend any 5K or 10K and see people from all walks. Insurance salesmen, elementary school teachers, octogenarians, 12-year-olds, persons using wheelchairs.

I am not, however, doing the 5K, I am doing the marathon. The BHM 26.2.

This is not my first marathon, but it is certainly my oldest. I am somewhat long in the tooth compared to my co-runners, who are largely from the TikTok generation. But we all share something in common.

We’re insane.

I started running when I was 15. I was a tragic kid, fatherless, with violent red hair, and I was overweight.

I first discovered I was overweight when our rural doctor, who had complimentary cheese danishes in his waiting room, said, “Son, you’re fat!

He said it just like that. He told me I needed to start taking care of myself shortly before he dug into his chest pocket and lit his Camel.

That same evening I stood before my bathroom mirror and I cried. Hard. I hated myself. I wished I were dead, actually.

Being a teen is hard. But it’s harder when you don’t fit in.

My dad was deceased. I was an academic failure, a dropout, and dyslexic. I felt like nobody loved me, and probably never would if I was quote, unquote, “taf.”

I went outside that same night, when it was dark, so no one could see me. I was wearing cut-off Levi’s and red Chuck Taylors.

I ran for exactly 4 minutes. I remember this precisely because I had only been able to run 4 minutes in gym class before I required emergency Cheetos. The next night I ran 5 minutes. The night after that, I ran for 6. And so on.

I lost weight that year. And everything changed for me. I started to feel more positively about myself. Running became my therapy. It made me feel less helpless. It was a way for me to process bad things that happened.

But most of all, running was a way for me to feel special. Just for an hour out of my day, I could feel a little better about me.

That year, I let my subscription to “M.A.D. Magazine” lapse and I subscribed to “Runners World” magazine. I started making changes. I saved up for a pair of cheap Nikes. I ran 5Ks without telling a soul.

And here I am middle-aged. I am out here with people just like me. We are suffering on this hilly route, of course. But we’re doing it.

I run beside a 79-year-old who says she runs because “I ain't dead yet.” A man with his teenage son, who runs because his own dad, a runner, died in a car accident this year.

A mother of nine kids, who runs because she defeated cancer. A Jewish boy with the flag of Israel flying from his back. A lady wearing a turban. A woman with a feeding tube.

When I cross the finish line, miles behind the rest of the pack, a random little boy is there to give me a medal.

He says “Conwatulations!” Then we hug.

I squeeze him tightly and wonder whether this kid will ever know what’s in store for his own incredible journey. All the twists and turns his course will take. All the hills he will overcome.

I wonder whether this child will always know that people love him, and never doubt it. I wonder whether the boy will always cherish himself, and his own life. I sincerely hope he will.

Because this little boy does.