Look

When a runner gets injured they sulk: they get depressed and stressed and confused. When anyone loses part of what defines them, they have to deal with an emptiness, or refill it. I've been running since I was 10 years old: my dad ran marathons before marathons were crazy events with 50,000+ runners. My dad was the hipster of runners. Before there was Gu or Bonk Breakers or stability shoes. My dad ran miles and miles and miles as a meditation. So I mimicked him. I never ran to compete, although I'm very competitive. The cross country coach at my (Division III university) found me in the cafeteria one day and told me that I ran more miles than his team, and that I might as well come run for him. So I did. We ran 70+ mile weeks. I loved it. I was never the fastest: usually the 4th runner in at best, but we watched Prefontaine a billion times, and it all made me feel normal. I kept running more and more miles: entering races, giving myself goals. I've put in way more miles than my father, although I still think of HIM as the runner. Now, after 20 years of a lot of miles, I'm trying something new. A bike. I'm not new to the bike, necessarily. I went to graduate school in Bloomington, Indiana: the town made famous by Breaking Away. I biked the Hilly Hundred and wrote articles for the alternative newspaper about local bike events. But now I'm doing it as a new meditation. Now I'm admitting that it's never a bad time to redefine yourself.