I was working at an event last Saturday and being the finish line person, I was based (where else?) at the finish line tent. The purpose of the tent, other than to shelter the timing equipment (yours truly included), is also to attract participants so that they knew where to finish. Naturally, the tent also attracted other interesting characters.
What is this for? What distances are these people doing? Where do they run? Who organizes this?
This particular conversation, as with any curious park user, was no different. You can still see the youth in her, likely to be in her late 20s or early 30s, she arrived on a bicycle. You could see she was enjoying the beautiful spring day and loved being out there.
However, she honestly would prefer to run instead of ride. Ran a particular road half marathon a couple of years ago and hurt her feet. Collapsed arches was the diagnosis. As she stood there narrating her pain in the feet and frustration of seeing professionals after professionals to no avail, her eagerness to get well again so she could go back to “running 5mi everyday”, I could not help but empathize.
It must suck to be unable to do something as simple as walk, run or ride without pain. She obviously loved running and to be denied that ability must thoroughly hurt. I have been there before with my ITB syndrome and now this chronic hamstring/glut injury from a cycling incident 18 months ago. Although it has not stopped me from running YET, it has definitely debilitated my running. It is always there.
She wanted me to think of her, to think of her whenever I ran, to appreciate that I could do what she would love to do but could not.
After a week, I was still thinking of her. Think of her.
