December 2011-January 2012

How Do You Party Like It’s Your Birthday? - By Wilt Alston “It’s your birthday. We gon’ party like it’s your birthday.”   ~ 50 Cent from “In Da Club” I am unsure if the GRTC membership has many members who are familiar with the smooth stylings of one Mr. Curtis Jackson, or the artist known by the stage name, 50 Cent. Obviously, that didn’t stop me from referring to him in my opening quote. I really couldn’t resist, since my birthday just passed and I can’t help smiling every time I hear that line. You might be thinking, “Well, did you party like it was your birthday, Wilt?” The answer to that question depends upon what one considers partying. I’m not one to eschew the value of a good party, with all the typical trappings, but I must admit that what I did in honor of my 53rd birthday might be considered a little unusual, to most people anyway, most normal people certainly. No one ever said runners were normal, though. How did I celebrate my 53rd birthday? I went for a 10-mile run. And, it was fabulous. How fast I covered the distance is unimportant, so I won’t even mention it here. How I felt about those miles, and that run, and how those miles related to my life, are what I’d like to share. This is what I posted on my profile at DailyMile.com: When I was 23, I couldn't have run 10 miles. When I was 33, I didn't want to. When I was 43, I ran 10 miles on a routine basis, but it was work. Today I turned 53, and ran a wonderful, fun, 10 miles just because I could. My point-of-view might be a little skewed, but I already admitted that. Most of the runners I know have been running for a while. This is true of me as well. (Speaking of running for a while, after the Spencerport—Pineway Ponds Freezeroo, I was kibitzing with a fellow runner when he told me he had run 40+ marathons. I’m not sure which was more amazing---the fact that he had run so many marathons, or the fact that he didn’t know exactly how many! Yeah, runners are different.) Anyway… What did I mean in my DailyMile posting and what does it mean to you? It’s pretty simple really. When I was in college, although I was a 2-miler in high school, I did no “recreational” running. None. I played a lot of basketball, but as far as running as a pursuit, it just didn’t make the cut. For reasons that escape me now, that opinion changed only a few years out of college, but at around 23, running still hadn’t cracked my personal Top 10 leisure activities. Running 10 miles would therefore not only have been a pipedream but a nightmare as well. Some 10 years later, I was running fast 10Ks as a hobby. I was however, completely convinced that anyone who ran farther than 6.2 miles, not under active pursuit by law enforcement, had to be mentally unstable. I openly laughed at marathoners. (Having now run more than a few marathons, it’s pretty clear that we aren’t that smart, so my laughter wasn’t misplaced.) By age 43, I already had a couple of horrendous marathon experiences—both at the (then) LaSalle Bank Chicago Marathon—under my belt. I’ve met very few people who had wonderful first marathon experiences. It seems that most people who run the race for time i.e., with the goal of breaking 4 hours, return saying variant of “Wow that was hard!” My experience was no different. In fact, what I really wondered was whence did all that chaffing come? Apparently, areas of friction that are petty annoyances over 5 or 6 miles turn into life-and-death trials of one’s spirit over 26.2 miles. But I stuck with it. I had a marathon-training plan, and I worked that plan like a job. Maybe not surprisingly, an extra job of that type can tend to get boring. One can lose focus, and maybe, just maybe, forget why he started the journey in the first place. That’s why that 10-miler on December 4th was so cool. I realize that I have harped on this in this column more than I should, but if I’ve learned anything about running in the 30+ years that I’ve been doing it, it’s this:  It is impossible to over-value the good fortune bestowed upon everyone who can run “just because.” If your family is like mine, you’ve been asked, probably more than once, “Why do you run?” Better yet is this classic question, posed after you return from a race, “Did you win?” My experience to this point, accentuated by that wonderful 10-mile birthday run, provides the answers. Why do I run? Just because. Did I win? Actually, yes. Yes I did.