It's been 10 years since my first* cross-country race

At the start of my first cross-country race. I'm the one on the far left, in the shadow of that tall kid.

10 years ago today, an awkward, skinny, 14-year-old kid with ridiculous hair put on his running shorts backwards and headed to the starting line of his first high school cross country race, the Brian Plasman Invitational at Fairfield's Harbin Park. Despite a few summer months of training, and some other running experience, he didn't really know what he was doing. So he was a bit surprised, a half-mile or so into the two-mile freshman race, to find himself locked in a battle of wills for first place. But he turned his surprise into determination, hung with the other runner vying for victory, and, in the final stretch, out-kicked his competitor and won his first high school cross country race. (Somewhere, there is a picture of the moment I crossed the line, but I cannot find it.)

In the middle of my first race (I'm on the left). 

If you haven't figured it out by now, yes, I was that kid. And today is the tenth anniversary of that race, which I consider the official start of my running career. Memory can be an arbitrary thing; we can recall, years after the fact, useless random information or pointless details about our lives, while our best moments become only foggy recollections. But I'll always remember August 25, 2007, the day I became a runner.

Team prayer before the race. I'm the guy kneeling down to tie his shoes, of course.

I have a lot of reasons to remember a day like that. Starting my running career off with a win was certainly nice. But I think it's more important for the pattern it set. Because, for the subsequent decade of my life, running has been my life; I've been living the life between runs that inspired the name of this blog. I lived it at St. Xavier High School, working my way up from novice freshman to confused sophomore to confident upperclassmen, with some of my best friends and favorite coaches by my side. I was fortunate enough to live it at Hillsdale College, running with, against, and coached by others who also lived lives between runs, and being humbled by the sheer array of talent I had to face. And I do it as a college graduate, content, for the most part, to run all my miles in solitude, to serve as the only teammate and coach that I have. I did many other things during these years, but I was almost always also running, or thinking about running.

And I've done a lot of running in these past ten years. According to my currently (and likely perpetually) incomplete running2win running log, I have run about 20,000 miles (a figure that does not include any running I did before June 2009--or not yet, anyway**). I've also run 92 races (again, not counting pre-June 2009), at the following distances: 400 meters, 800 meters, 1500 meters, 1600 meters, 1 mile, 3000 meters, 3200 meters, 4000 meters, 5k (by far the most represented distance), 4 miles, 8k, 5 miles, 10k, and, last May, 13.1 miles. I have run in four countries (USA, Jamaica, Italy, and Greece), and 12 states (Ohio, South Carolina, Kentucky, Illinois, Michigan, Indiana, Wisconsin, West Virginia, North Carolina, California, Virginia, Maryland, and Washington, D.C., with races in Ohio, Kentucky, Michigan, Indiana, Wisconsin, North Carolina, and Washington, D.C.). The ~20,000 miles I've run would have taken me across the United States a bit less than 8 times, though I'm still 4,000 miles short of making the full ~24,000-mile circumference of the Earth.

It's basically impossible for me, at this point, to recount all of my memories from a decade of running, though some races (high school XC District championships 2009, college conference championships 2013) stand out. But I can begin to list some of the things I love so much about it. The smell and feel of being at a cross country course in the fall. The pre-race jitters. The thrill of actually winning a race. The feeling you get after a race or a workout. The way cold winter air makes your lungs hurt. When it's raining so much outside that you stop caring how wet or muddy you're getting. The guilt-free excuse excessive running provides to eat as much as you want and still be skinny. The cheerful camaraderie of runs with others. The bracing solitude of runs alone. Charlie horses. Ice baths. Post-race Gatorade. A successfully-executed race-ending kick. I could go on forever.

Pictured: Me, really enjoying running. 

But it would be dishonest to deny that running always goes well, for me or for anyone else. For every race I've run well, there is at least one that I've blown, or at least not done what I wanted to do. For every workout that I meet my standards, there is at least one (or more) in which I fall short. For every period where I feel indestructible and practically immortal, there has been a period when injury, exhaustion, or a mental funk has laid me low. Running is not always pleasant, and anyone who tells you otherwise is either lying or doesn't do it enough.

Indeed, at many times throughout my now decade-long running career, it's been rough enough for me that I've thought about hanging up my shoes for good. (I have literally bled for the sport.) It happened in high school, when it seemed like my early promise was fading away. It happened in college, when it seemed like I just couldn't figure out how to fit running into my life. And it's happened in my post-collegiate running life, when injury, disappointment, or sheer exhaustion have made me wonder if my lone wolf runner lifestyle is really worth the effort I put into it. In my darkest moments, sometimes I've wondered whether I should just move on, make running a casual hobby, something I do every once in a while when I feel like it, instead of trying to maintain the same level of commitment to it that I've had for all of these years. In these moments, the simple yet piercing question presents itself: Why?

Me, bleeding for the sport.

The biting nature of that simple question has forced me to come up with an answer several times; see here and here, for example. As with many questions of this nature, I may never get a true answer. I can always point to tertiary benefits: staying in shape (though I could capture most of the fitness benefits of cardio at about a third of the running I do), relief of boredom, etc. But the best I've come up with so far is something like this. By now, running is so thoroughly a part of my life that I don't think I could stop even if I tried (and I actually have!). Beyond that, though, there's a part of me that never wants to stop. A part of me that sees all of the disappointments, all of the times I've fallen short, and takes them only as further motivation. Because of that, so long as I never get exactly what I want out of running--and believe me, I still haven't--I will never want to stop. And I think that's because I will never truly be happy with myself until I've seen how good I can be. I am fortunate enough to have this gift, and I would not be using it rightly if I did not test its true extent, all the while honing these virtues--discipline, self-reliance, persistence--that make me not only a better runner but also a better person. Plus, the way I see it, I have at least another solid decade of running at my physical peak in me before time finally starts catching up. That's plenty of time left to see what I am capable of.

Starting the last lap of my last college race. I could have stopped here forever, but I didn't.

So what's next for me? I have no idea what the next 10 years of running will bring. But I can tell you about the next 10 weeks. Right now, I am in the midst of running my first-ever 100-mile week, a feat I came within less than a mile of achieving in college, a falling-short that has bothered me ever since. It is going well, though we'll see how I feel after my 22-mile run on Sunday. And why am I being even more of a masochist than usual? Because on October 22, I will run my first marathon: the Marine Corps Marathon of Washington, D.C. It should be...interesting.

Oh, one more thing. On September 10, a couple of Washington, D.C. grade school kids will line up at the start of their first race of the cross-country season; for some of them, their first race ever. They may or may not know what they're doing; they may or may not win. Regardless, starting next Wednesday, I will be there for them as their coach. Running has given me a lot over the years, and it's time I started giving back. And so, in 10 years, I have moved from runner to coach. I'm excited to see what the next decade of running brings. But whatever happens, I'll always remember that it all started with a skinny, awkward, 14-year-old kid with ridiculous hair at Harbin Park.

Even though I have come a long way since then. Now, my beard is ridiculous instead of my hair.

*Okay,  I ran cross country as an 8th grader, but I was playing football at the same time, so I don't really count it. High school XC was my real first.
**Because I have a dangerous, almost debilitating obsession with the past, I'm currently engaged in an extended project to update my running log for as much of the running I have ever done as possible.