A Few Reasons Why I Love to Do It:

Feeling Better One Mile at a Time

by Audrey Robertson

for Literary Nonfiction, ETSU

12-10-04

Audrey Robertson is an East Tennessee State University senior and anticipates graduation in May 2005. She is studying for a degree in public relations and English. Audrey lives in Johnson City, TN where she enjoys writing and running in the Appalachian Mountains.

Many people ask me why I do it. They don’t understand how I do it so often, or where the motivation comes from. They often comment that they have done it in the past, maybe in high school, and every now and then they might get a wild hair and do it again.

One day when I was meeting my friend, Ryan, for dinner I told him that I needed to do it before we met.

“Yeah, before we get together I need to go out and do it, it won’t take too long…today’s an off day because I’ve put in long ones the last two days,” I told Ryan.

“You’ve got to be kidding me. I’d never get through it. I’d have to take a nap after the first five minutes,” Ryan replied back.

“To tell you the truth, it gets better the more you do it,” I said. “Gena thinks the same as you; I swear ya’ll are so damn lazy.”

Later that evening, he told me I was crazy and said, jokingly, that he had to pull over on the interstate and take a nap (I told him on his cell) because it made him tired just to think about it. The last guy I dated and I used to do it together quiet often. He found the same fulfillment as I did. I think that doing it with someone you love is one of the best things about it; there’s something truly intimate and encouraging in it.

Fall is my most favorite season to do it in. The smell of fall reminds me of doing it with my friends in high school; that cool, crisp, orange and brown leafy smell. The rhythmic sound of my breath in cadence with my red heart, pumping blue oxygen to my

Robertson 2

pink organs keeps me sane. Doing it out side is better than doing it inside. To breathe fall air deep into my lungs makes me fresh; the autumn air seems alive. Putting down the miles on an autumn morning sets the rest of the day.

~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~

Running has been a strong priority in my life for many years. My first running experience began in high school, but as an adolescent I did not reap the rewards that I do now as a young woman, or, on the other hand, maybe I did. Studies have proven that women can only build bone mass until age 35. Running encourages teenagers’ bones to absorb calcium, magnesium and other minerals that will give female adolescents a better chance at not breaking a hip in their mature years. Three glasses of fat free milk a day will take it to the bone. To sweeten this running deal, I can ingest an extra 300 to 500 calories as pay back for that gruesome hill that kicked my ass back on mile three. Another added bonus is that most runners’ diets encourage the intake of about a gram of chocolate a few times a week. Chocolate contains antioxidants that help strengthen one’s immune system.

Another component to keeping muscles healthy is water, but H2O in combination with running rids the body of toxins improving skin tone and increasing brain activity. Just a reminder, but 70% of one’s body is water, not soda, and this was a big hurdle in my diet. Drinking a case of Mountain Dew a week wasn’t really helping my hydration. You

Robertson 3

are what you eat and drink and your body will feel the way you treat it. Keeping a steady diet will decrease the risk of fatigue. Fatigue and dehydration are major factors that result in injury and carnage out on the road.

Physical health is not the only benefit I enjoyed after my shins, knees, thighs, calves, and gluteus stopped throbbing from the initial beginning runners’ aches. I found myself being able to cope with stress more rationally and, ironically, I had more energy than I did when I lived a semi-sedentary lifestyle. Endorphins, or happy hormones, play a major role in healthy mentality. Any exercise that increases blood flow and heart rate for a significant amount of time (usually thirty minutes) can potentially lead to what I have come to know as “runner’s high”. It’s hard to believe but I sometimes get caught up in the rhythm and drift into a heightened state of mind for fifteen minutes or so before I notice I’m drifting and ruin it for myself. It’s almost like a large dose of THC, the hallucinogenic drug contained in potent marijuana, but without the effects of being unmotivated. Taking time to run with a busy schedule can be a stress, but my body and mind let me know if I haven’t had a run in a few days. I truly believe that running is my savior. Running is setting aside forty-five minutes for me, and it’s in that time that I figure out who I am all over, every day. It’s meditation and exercise wrapped up in a few miles. It’s the positive satisfaction that I set that goal and I reached that goal, or at least raised hell on the road trying.

These are a few reasons why I began this thing of torture called running. Believe it of not, after the first month the runs are worth looking forward to. It’s a factor in everyone’s life that can be controlled in a time where it seems like everyone’s life

Robertson 4

controls him or her. In addition to having a strong heart, lungs and body, running strengths the mind and increases longevity. Ask any runner and they’ll probably come up with a dozen other reasons why they chose to put down the miles today, this week, or the past ten years. Run to live longer, live to run longer. Who said this? I said this.