I'm Running The World!!!

I once read a book titled What I Talk About When I Talk About Running, written by Haruki Murakami. I remember loving the book, but being unable to relate to the topic. I read this in my junior year of high school. At the time I despised running. Hated it. Every time it felt like torture. I'm sure we can all relate to this general feeling at some points in our life. Some people feel this way perhaps their whole life. 

Maybe we learned to hate it through the pacer test in high school, when the robotic voice echoed through the gym telling us to run back and forth until a group of 50 or so teenagers looked like some algorithm. Maybe it was the mile test in middle school. When we ran laps around the green field, picking up popsicle sticks to make sure no one cheated. Some kids ran it in 7 minutes -they were deemed to be ahead of the game. But others finished in 13. While the creators of the fitness test tell them they are unfit, some of them just liked to walk. And walking is perfect. Walking is the best we can all do-yet none of us seem to do it enough. Maybe it was run-4-fun. (This applies to OCS kids only). That dreadful day when we were forced to run laps around the field in 100 degree heat, with the song Happy blaring in our ears for the fourth year in a row, attempting to get more circles punched in our paper card that would supposedly raise us enough money for the field-trips that we never went on. 

But I also know there was a point in our childhood where it felt like we could run forever. Where we let the force of gravity push us down the grassy hill obeying the first law of thermodynamics by letting the energy nestled in our bodies change into the wind-mailing motion of our legs. Never being created. Never being destroyed. There was a point in our childhoods where running wasn't a thought but an action-a want, a necessity, an instinct. It was an utter lack of control-it was a great feeling. That brink of possibly face planting-but just as your center starts to tilt, you see your foot again, again, and again. 

We lose this feeling eventually, most of us at least (I am not speaking to the dedicated runners since birth out there, great stuff, keep running). And in some ways this feeling of running as a chore makes sense. Time moves slower when you run (some physics law, theory, or time warp shit). It gets boring- one foot after the other. No breaks. Just constant movement. Bum bum bum bum. 

But of course. 

If it was all that bad. 

No one would be doing it. 

We wouldn’t have done it for hundreds of thousands of years. 

There is something innate in us to run. 

I think we are all runners, I think we all need to run.

OCS was right, 

Running is fun. 

The following pages will prove why. 

I started running again this past summer. I got an itch one morning to face the Altadena hills and run a few miles. I have a big problem with goals though. As soon as I set one for myself, I want to accomplish it all. Oh yes I was going to run, I was going to run miles. Maybe even a half marathon! 8 minute pace? Easy! (I hadn’t run consistently in 7 years).

This type of logic does not work for runs. 

So I decided to do 2 miles instead. 

And Hazzah! I did 2.3! An accomplishment in the mountains of Altadena!

And I felt it as I was blasting the bridge of “Cruel Summer” at the last minute.

That unbeatable escape of being on top of the world, of flying, of falling, of running the world. 

The runner's high.

Energy is just curated. You are totally disobeying the laws of thermodynamics! I am destroying everything! Just making energy! Take that William Tomphson! 

And so I kept at it. 

Once a week. 

Here and there. 

2 became 3 miles, 3 became the sporadic 4, and 4 became: Running is going on my vision board. I will run in 2024. I want to run a 10k race. It is my time. I am a runner. 

So I now run two days per week. One shorter distance. One long. 

I can say I don’t care for time but my competitive personality would beg to differ. We all love to be fast. 

And this whole running epiphany came to me on Saturday February 3rd 2024, roughly 9:27 am. 

I woke up knowing I needed to run to accomplish my twice a week goal but I also had that impending doom of morning sluggishness: the last thing I wanted to do was move my feet one step in front of the other.

But I forced myself in my favorite green workout set. In my shoes. Downed some coffee (not too much). Burst out the Sixth building doors, and began to run as Taylor Swift asked me again and again if she could ask me a “question…?” I went right on the path. I felt good! Legs were light, temperature was perfect, sun was in my eyes, my phone was not over stimulating me as I held it in my sports bra. Awesome things! I decided I would do 40 minutes, which would probably result in 4.2-4.5 miles. Nice. 

I was getting a bit tired. I assumed it had already been 10 minutes which means only 3 more 10 minute sets to go, but technically only one more 10 min set because I have to turn back at the 20 minute mark. Simple math. I checked my phone: 8:54. I started running at 8:50. Oh God. I hadn’t even reached a mile yet. But like all great runners, I persevered. I promised myself to just not touch my phone, just listen to the music. Don’t think about how many minutes this song is Catalina-just go-one foot, one foot, one foot. 

And the feet kept moving, 

Taylor Swift kept playing. 

Going, going, going.

I found myself on a long sidewalk path leading to I don’t know where. I passed by other runners debating if I should smile at them and offer them a nod of encouragement. I like seeing other runners-it feels like we are all on the same crazy expedition of torture.

Funny thing is, the longer I was running the easier it all felt. Maybe I would do more than 4 miles. Maybe I would do 5? I didn’t want to stop. I didn’t want to stop when I hit a hiking trail. When I knew I had to turn back to make it to my DOC 2 lecture, I didn’t want to stop. Not in the slightest, 

And so, when I turned back, and found myself on the long concrete sidewalk once more, I opened myself up to the runners high and let it all pour over me at 9:27 am. I was hit with the epiphanies of all epiphanies when it comes to running. Cruel Summer blasted in my ears. My feet felt like they were levitating. Faster. Higher. More! More! More!

My thoughts came to me like messages sent from some type of higher power: 

“Oh my God. I am unstoppable. I am a God!

I am…running the world (this double meaning now makes a lot more sense).”

Because that is what running allows you to do. To see so much-in such a short period of time. 

That’s why Forrest Gump never stopped! He wanted to see it all! And he did!!!!

And even if it was just a small La Jolla pocket 2.8 miles from campus. 

I never would have seen it the same if I was walking, driving, or biking by, 

Running makes you see things.

Running makes you become a part of the world. 

You are forced to not focus on anything but the now. Whatever that may be.

The air, the ground, the people. 

Everything. 

It is all so beautiful…. 

Dramatic? 

Possibly.

But I encourage you all to try it for yourself. 

You don’t have to listen to Taylor Swift. Although- the bridge of Cruel Summer does allow more oxygen to be sent to your muscles-I think there is some science behind this…

You don’t have to run far. Maybe just a mile, maybe just down your block, for God’s sake maybe just down a grassy hill.

But let it happen. 

Let your legs flail and your arms dangle.

Let your breath become your metronome as you exhale with each step.

Let your body go,

And run the fucken world.